The Silent Places ................................................................................................................................................1

Stewart Edward White.............................................................................................................................1

Chapter 1 ..................................................................................................................................................1

Chapter 2 ..................................................................................................................................................5

Chapter 3 ..................................................................................................................................................7

Chapter 4 ................................................................................................................................................10

Chapter 5 ................................................................................................................................................12

Chapter 6 ................................................................................................................................................14

Chapter 7 ................................................................................................................................................19

Chapter 8 ................................................................................................................................................22

Chapter 9 ................................................................................................................................................25

Chapter 10 ..............................................................................................................................................29

Chapter 11 ..............................................................................................................................................32

Chapter 12 ..............................................................................................................................................35

Chapter 13 ..............................................................................................................................................39

Chapter 14 ..............................................................................................................................................43

Chapter 15 ..............................................................................................................................................47

Chapter 16 ..............................................................................................................................................49

Chapter 17 ..............................................................................................................................................55

Chapter 18 ..............................................................................................................................................58

Chapter 19 ..............................................................................................................................................61

Chapter 20 ..............................................................................................................................................64

Chapter 21 ..............................................................................................................................................66

Chapter 22 ..............................................................................................................................................68

Chapter 23 ..............................................................................................................................................69

Chapter 24 ..............................................................................................................................................72

Chapter 25 ..............................................................................................................................................76

Chapter 26 ..............................................................................................................................................78

Chapter 27 ..............................................................................................................................................81

Chapter 28 ..............................................................................................................................................82

Chapter 29 ..............................................................................................................................................83

Chapter 30 ..............................................................................................................................................86

Chapter 31 ..............................................................................................................................................87

Chapter 32 ..............................................................................................................................................88

At about eight o'clock one evening of the early summer a group of men were seated on a grass plot

overlooking a broad river. The sun was just setting through the forest fringe directly behind them.

Of this group some reclined in the short grass, others lay flat on the bank's slope, while still others leaned

against the carriages of two highly ornamented fieldguns, whose embossed muzzles gaped silently at an

The men were busy with softvoiced talk, punctuating their remarks with low laughter of a singularly

infectious character. It was strange speech, richly embroidered with the musical names of places, with

unfamiliar names of beasts, and with unintelligible names of things. Ken�gami, Mam�tawan, Weneb�gan,

Kap�skas�ng, the silverfox, the seaotter, the sable, the wolverine, the muskparka, ox, babiche, tumpline,

gidd�s, these and others sang like arrows cleaving the atmosphere of commoner words. In the distant

woods the white throats and olive thrushes called in a language hardly less intelligible.

There scarcely needed the row of glistening birchbarks below the men, the warehouse with its picketed lane,

the tall flagstaff, the blockhouse stockade, the halfbred women chatting over the low fences of the

loghouses, the squaws wandering to and fro in picturesque silence, the Indian children playing noisily or

standing in awe before the veranda of the white house, to inform the initiated that this little forestand

rivergirt settlement was a post of the Honourable the Hudson's Bay Company. The time of sunset and the

direction of the river's flow would have indicated a high latitude. The milelong meadow, with its Indian

camp, the oval of forest, the immense breadth of the river identified the place as Conjuror's House. Thus the

blue water in the distance was James Bay, the river was the Moose; enjoying his Manila cheroot on the

Factory veranda with the other officers of the Company was Galen Albret, and these men lounging on the

river bank were the Company's postkeepers and runners, the travellers of the Silent Places.

They were of every age and dressed in a variety of styles. All wore ornamented moccasins, head garters, and

red sashes of worsted. As to the rest, each followed his taste. So in the group could be seen bare heads,

filletbound heads, covered heads; shirt sleeves, woollen jerseys, and long, beautiful blanket coats. Two

things, however, proved them akin. They all possessed a lean, wiry hardness of muscle and frame, a

hawklike glance of the eye, an almost emaciated spareness of flesh on the checks. They all smoked pipes of

Whether the bronze of their faces, thrown into relief by the evening glow, the frowning steadiness of their

eyes, or more fancifully the background of the guns, the flagstaff and the stockade was most responsible, the

militant impression persisted strongly. These were the veterans of an hundred battles. They were of the stuff

forlorn hopes are fashioned from. A great enemy, a powerful enemy, an enemy to he respected and feared had

hardened them to the unyielding. The adversary could almost he measured, the bitterness of the struggle

almost he gauged from the scars of their spirits; the harshness of it, the cruelty of it, the wonderful immensity

of it that should so fashion the souls and flesh of men. For to the hearing of these loungers clung that hint of

greater things which is never lacking to those who have called the deeps of man's nature to the conquering.

The sun dipped to the horizon, and over the landscape slipped the beautiful northcountry haze of crimson.

From the distant forest sounded a single mournful wolfhowl. At once the sledgedogs answered in chorus.

The twilight descended. The men gradually fell silent, smoking their pipes, savouring the sharp snowtang,

Suddenly out of the dimness loomed the tall form of an Indian, advancing with long, straight strides. In a

He touched two of the men lightly on the shoulder. They arose, for they knew him as the bowsman of the

Meengen led the way in silence, across the grass plot, past the flagstaff, to the foot of the steps leading to

the Factory veranda. There the Indian left them. They mounted the steps. A voice halted them in the square of

The veranda was wide and low; railed in; and, except for the square of light, cast in dimness. A dozen men

sat in chairs, smoking. Across the shaft of light the smoke eddied strangely. A woman's voice accompanied

softly the tinkle of a piano inside. The sounds, Eke the lamplight, were softened by the distance of the

Of the men on the veranda Galen Albret's identity alone was evident. Grim, foursquare, inert, his very way

of sitting his chair, as though it were a seat of judgment and be the interpreter of some fierce bloodlaw,

betrayed him. From under the bushy white tufts of his eyebrows the woodsmen felt the search of his

The older had some fiftyfive or sixty years, though his frame was still straight and athletic. A

narrowbrimmed slouch hat shadowed quiet, gray eyes, a hawk nose, a long sweeping white mustache. His

hands were tanned to a hard mahogany brown carved into veins, cords, and gnarled joints. He had kindly

humour in the wrinkles of his eyes, the slowly developed imagination of the forest dweller in the deliberation

of their gaze, and an evident bard and wiry endurance. His dress, from the rough peajacket to the

His companion was hardly more than a boy in years, though more than a man in physical development. In

every respect he seemed to he especially adapted to the rigours of northern life. The broad arch of his chest,

the plump smoothness of his muscles, above all, the full roundness of his throat indicated that warmthgiving

blood, and plenty of it, would he pumped generously to every part of his body. His face from any point of

view but one revealed a handsome, jaunty boy, whose heard was still a shade. But when he looked at one

directly, the immaturity fell away. This might have hen hocus of a certain confidence of experience beyond

what most boys of twenty can know, or it might have hen the result merely of a physical peculiarity. For his

eyes were so extraordinarily close together that they seemed by their very proximity to pinch the bridge of his

nose, and in addition, they possessed a queer slant or cast which twinkled perpetually now in one, now in the

other. It invested him at once with an air singularly remote and singularly determined. But at once when he

looked away the old boyishness returned, enhanced further by a certain youthful barbarity in the details of his

dressa slanted heron's feather in his bat, a headed knife sheath, an excess of ornamentation on his garters

In a moment one of the men on the veranda began to talk. It was not Galen Albret, though Galen Albret had

summoned them, but MacDonald, his Chief Trader and his rightband man. Galen Albret himself made no

sign, but sat, his head sunk forward, watching the men's faces from his cavernous eyes.

"You have hen called for especial duty," began MacDonald, shortly. "It is volunteer duty, and you need not

go unless you want to. We have called you hocus you have the reputation of never having failed. That is not

much for you, Herron, hocus you are young. Still we believe in you. But you, Bolton, are an old hand on the

"I am going to tell you what we want. If you don't care to tackle the job, you must know nothing about it.

"That's all right. Do you men remember Jingoss, the Ojibway, who outfitted here a year ago last summer?"

"That is for you to find out." MacDonald then went on to explain himself, hitching his chair still nearer, and

lowering his voice. "A year ago last summer," said he, "he got his 'debt' at the store of two hundred castors *

which he was to pay off in pelts the following spring. He never came back. I don't think he intends to. The

example is bad. It has never happened to us before. Too many Indians get credit at this Post. If this man is

allowed to go unpunished, we'll be due for all sorts of trouble with our other creditors. Not only he, but all the

rest of them, must be made to feel that an embezzler is going to be caught, every time. They all know he's

stolen that debt, and they're waiting to see what we're going to do about it. I tell you this so you'll know that

"Catch him, and catch him alive!" corrected MacDonald. "There must be no shooting. We've got to punish

him in a way that will make him an example. We've got to allow our Indians 'debt' in order to keep them. If

we run too great a risk of loss, we cannot do it. That is a grave problem. In case of success you shall have

double pay for the time you are gone, and he raised two ranks in the service. Will you do it?"

Sam Bolton passed his emaciated, gnarled hand gropingly across his mouth, his usual precursor of speech.

But Galen Albret abruptly interposed, speaking directly, with authority, as was his habit.

"Hold on," said he, "I want no doubt. If you accept this, you must not fail. Either you must come back with

that Indian, or you need not come back at all. I won't accept any excuses for failure. I won't accept any

Dick Herron suddenly laughed aloud, startling to flight the gravities of the moment.

"If Sam here's got her figured out, I've no need to worry," he asserted. "I'm with you."

"Very well," agreed MacDonald. "Remember, this must be kept quiet. Come to me for what you need."

"I will say goodby to you now," said Galen Albret. "I do not wish to be seen talking to you tomorrow."

The woodsmen stepped forward, and solemnly shook Galen Albret's band. He did not arise to greet these men

he was sending out into the Silent Places, for he was the Factor, and not to many is it given to rule a country

so rich and extended. They nodded in turn to the taciturn smokers, then glided away into the darkness on

The night had fallen. Here and there through the gloom shone a lamp. Across the north was a dim glow of

phosphorescence, precursor of the aurora, from which occasionally trembled for an instant a single shaft of

light. The group by the bronze fieldcannon were humming softly the sweet and tender cadences of La

Instinctively the two woodsmen paused on the hither side of rejoining their companions. Bolton's eyes were

already clouded with the trouble of his speculation. Dick Herron glanced at his comrade quizzically, the

"Strikes me that by the time we get through drawin' that double pay on this job, we'll be rich menand old!"

Dick Herron whipped the grasses with a switch he had broken in passing a willowbush. His mind was little

active. Chiefly he regretted the good time he had promised himself here at the Post after the labour of an early

spring march from distant Winnipeg. He appreciated the difficulties of the undertaking, but idly, as

something that hardly concerned him. The details, the planning, he dismissed from his mind, confident that

his comrade would rise to that. In time Sam Bolton would show him the point at which he was to bend his

strength. Then he would stoop his shoulders, shut his eyes, and apply the magnificent brute force and pluck

that was in him. So now he puckered his lips to the sibilance of a canoesong, and waited.

But the other, Sam Bolton, the veteran woodsman, stood in rapt contemplation, his wideseeing, gentle eyes

Beyond the black velvet band lay the wilderness. There was the trackless country, large as the United States

itself, with its great forests, its unmapped bodies of water, its plains, its barren grounds, its mountains, its

water courses wider even than the Hudson River. Moose and hear, true lords of the forest, he might see any

summer day. Herds of caribou, sometimes thousands strong, roamed its woodlands and barrens. Wolves,

lurking or bold as their prey was strong or weak, clung to the caribou bands in hope of a victim. Wolverines,

unchanged in form from another geological period marten, mink, fisher, otter, ermine, muskrat, lynx,

foxes, beaver carried on their varied affairs of murder or of peaceful industry. Woods Indians, scarcely less

keen of sense or natural of life than the animals, dwelt in their wigwams of bark or skins, trapped and fished,

made their long migrations as the geese turn following their instinct. Sun, shadow, rain, cold, snow, hunger,

plenty, labour, or the peaceful gliding of rivers, these had watched by the Long Trail in the years Sam Bolton

had followed it. He sensed them now dimly, instinctively, waiting by the Trail he was called upon to follow.

Sam Bolton had lived many years in the forest, and many years alone. Therefore he had imagination. It might

Now from the safe vantage ground of the camp, from the breathing space before the struggle, he looked out

upon the wilderness, and in the wilderness he felt the old, inimical Presence as he had felt it for forty years.

The scars of that long combat throbbed through his consciousness. The twisting of his strong hands, the

loosening of the elasticity, the humbling of the spirit, the caution that had displaced the carelessness of youth,

the keenness of eye, the patience,all these were at once the marks of blows and the spoils of victory received

from the Enemy. The wilderness, calm, ruthless, just, terrible, waited in the shadow of the forest, seeking no

combat, avoiding none, conquering with a lofty air of predestination, yielding superbly as though the

moment's victory for which a man had strained the fibres of his soul were, after all, a little, unimportant thing;

never weary, never exultant, dispassionate, inevitable, mighty, whose emotions were silence, whose speech

was silence, whose most terrible weapon was the great white silence that smothered men's spirits. Sam Bolton

clearly saw the North. He felt against him the steady pressure of her resistance. She might yield, but

relentlessly, regained her elasticity. Men's efforts against her would tire; the mechanics of her power

remained constant. What she lost in the moments of her opponent's might, she recovered in the hours of his

weakness, so that at the last she won, poised in her original equilibrium above the bodies of her antagonists.

Dimly he felt these things, personifying the wilderness in his imagination of the old man, arranging

Somewhere out beyond in those woods, at any one of the thirtytwo points of the compass, a man was

lurking. He might be five or five hundred miles away. He was an expert at taking care of himself in the

"We got to keep him or anybody else from knowin' we's after him, Dick," said he. "Jest as soon as he knows

that, it's just too easy for him to keep out of our way. Lucky Jingoss is an Ojibway, and his people are way off

south. We can fool this crowd here easy enough; we'll tell 'em we're looking for new locations for winter

"Which way 'll we go first?" asked Dick, without, however, much interest in the reply. Whatever Sam

"It's this way," replied the latter. "He's got to trade somewheres. He can't come into any of the Posts here at

the Bay. What's the nearest? Why, Missin�ibie , down in Lake Superior country. Probably he's down in that

"It's Ojibway country, but Jingoss is a Georgian Bay Ojibway. Down near Missin�ibie every Injun has his

own hunting district, and they're different from our Crees,they stick pretty close to their district. Any

strangers trying to bunt and trap there are going to get shot, sure pop. That makes me think that if Jingoss has

gone south, and if he's trading now at Missin�ibie , and if he ain't chummed up with some of them Ojibways

to get permission to trap in their allotments, and if he ain't pushed right on home to his own people or out

west to Winnipeg country, then most likely we'll find him somewheres about the region of th' Kabinak�gam."

As though this decision had terminated an interview, they turned with one accord toward the dim group of

"Here he is," "Dick, come here," "Dick, sing us the song. Chante donc 'Oncle Naid,' Deeck."

And Dick, leaning carelessly against the breech of the fieldguns, in a rich, husky baritone crooned to the far

Oh, there was an old darkey, and his name was Uncle Ned And he lived long ago, long ago!

In the selection of paddles early next morning Sam insisted that the Indian rule he observed, measuring

carefully that the length of each implement should just equal the heights of its wielder. He chose the narrow

maple blade, that it might not split when thrust against the bottom to check speed in a rapid. Further the

Dick Herron had already picked one of a dozen birchbark canoes laid away under the bridge over the dry

coulee. He knew a good canoe as you would know a good horse. Fourteen feet it measured, of the heavy

wintercut of bark, and with a bottom all of one piece, without cracks or large knots.

The canoe and the paddles they laid at the water's edge. Then they went together to the great warehouse,

behind the grill of whose upper room MacDonald was writing. Ordinarily the trappers were not allowed

inside the grill, but Dick and Sam were told to help themselves freely. The stocking Dick left to his older

companion, assuring himself merely of an hundred rounds of ammunition for his new model Winchester rifle,

In the obscurity of the wide, low room the old woodsman moved to and fro, ducking his head to avoid things

hanging, peering into corners, asking an occasional question of MacDonald, who followed him silently about.

Two small steel traps, a narrow, smallmeshed fishnet, a fishline and hooks, powder, ball, and caps for the

old man's muzzleloader, a sack of salt were first laid aside. This represented subsistence. Then matches, a

flintandsteel machine, two fourpoint blankets. These meant warmth. Then ten pounds of plug tobacco

and as many of tea. These were necessary luxuries. And finally a small sack of flour and a side of bacon.

These were merely a temporary provision; when they should be exhausted, the men would rely wholly on the

Sam Bolton hovered over the pile, after it was completed, his eyes half shut, naming over its items again and

again, assuring himself that nothing lacked. At his side MacDonald made suggestions.

"Got a copper pail, Sam? a fryingpan? cups? How about the axe? Better have an extra knife between you.

To each of these questions Sam nodded an assent. So MacDonald, having named everything with the

exception of the canvas square to be used as a tarpaulin or a tent, and soap and towelfell silent, convinced

But Dick, who had hen drumming his fingers idly against the window, turned with a suggestion, of his own.

"By George, boys, I ain't got but four or five pairs of moccasins in the place! There's plenty of oil tan; I can

fix you all right there. But smoke tans! That Abitibi gang mighty near cleaned me out. You'll have to try the

Accordingly Bolton and Herron took their way in the dusty little foottrodden paththere were no horses in

that frontierbetween the Factor's residence and the Clerk's house, down the meandering trail through the

high grasses of the meadow to where the Indian lodges lifted their pointed tops against the sky.

The wigwams were scattered apparently at random. Heifer each a fire burned. Women and girls busied

themselves with a variety of campwork. A tame crow hopped and fluttered here and there just out of reach

The latter rushed madly forward at the approaching strangers, yelping in a curious, longdrawn bay, more

suggestive of their wolf ancestors than of the domestic animal., Dick and Sam laid about them vigorously

with short staffs they had brought for the purpose. Immediately the dogs, recognising their dominance, slunk

back. Three men sauntered forward, grinning broadly in amiable greeting. Two or three women, more bashful

than the rest, scuttled into the depths of wigwams out of sight. A multitude of children concealed themselves

craftily, like a covey of quail, and focussed their bright, headlike eyes on the newcomers. The rest of the

These Indians were of the far upper country. They spoke no English nor French, and adhered still to their own

tribal customs and religious observances. They had lingered several days beyond their time for the purpose of

conjuring. In fact at this very moment the big medicine lodge raised itself in the centre of the encampment

like a miniature circus tent. Sam Bolton addressed the two in their own language.

Immediately one of the Indians glided away. From time to time during the next few minutes he was

intermittently visible as he passed from the dark interior of one wigwam, across the sunlight, and into the

Suddenly Dick Herron, who had, as usual, hen paying attention to almost anything rather than the matter in

band, darted suddenly toward a clump of grass. In a moment he straightened his back to bold at arms length a

struggling little boy. At the instant of his seizure the child uttered a sharp cry of fright, then closed his lips in

That one cry was enough, however. Rescue darted from the nearest wigwam. A flying figure covered the

little distance in a dozen graceful leaps, snatched the child from the young man's bands and stood, one foot

The girl belonged distinctly to the more attractive type; it required but little imagination to endow her with

real beauty. Her figure was straight and slim and wellproportioned, her eyes large, her face oval and quite

devoid of the broad, highcheeked stupidity so common in the northern races. At the moment she flashed like

Dick looked at her at first with amazement, then with mingled admiration and mischief. He uttered a

ferocious growl and lowered his shoulders as though about to charge. Immediately the defiance broke. The

girl turned and fled, plunging like a rabbit into the first shelter that offered, pursued by shrieks of delight from

the old squaws, a pleased roar from Dick, and the laughter of the Indian men themselves.

"Maymaygw�n,"* said the oldest Indian, naming her, "foster sister to the boy you had caught."

"Ae," admitted the Cree, indifferently. Such inclusions of another tribe, either by adoption or marriage, are

Sam Bolton looked troubled. This meant a delay. However, it could not be avoided.

"That cannot be. There is not time. We turn our canoes to the Missin�ibie by next sun."

Sam pondered again, turning over in his mind this fresh complication. But Dick, kicking the earth clods in

"Well, we're going by the Missin�ibie , too. Let the women make the moccasins. We will accompany you."

An old woman was summoned. She measured her customers' feet with a buckskin thong. Then, they departed

without further ceremony. An Indian rarely says farewell. When his business is finished he goes.

"Why?" cried Dick in astonishment. "Ain't you never travelled with Injuns before?"

"That ain't th' question. Did you notice that third Injun? the one who didn't do any talking?"

"Well, he's an Ojibway. Th' rest are Wood Crees. And I miss my guess if he ain't a bad customer. He watched

us mighty close, and his eyes are bad. He's sharp. He's one of that wondering kind. He's wondering now who

we are, and where we're going, and why we're hitting so long a trail. And what's more, he belongs to this

Jingoss's people in a roundabout sort of way. He's worse than fifty Crees. Maybe he knows all about Jingoss,

and if he does, he'll get suspicious the minute we angle down into that country."

"Let's let 'em slide, then," suggested Dick, impatiently. "Let's buy some buckskin and make our own

"Maybe, maybe," acknowledged the other "but borrowing trouble, and then figuring out how you're going to

"Sam," burst out Dick, whose attention had hen caught by a word in his companion's first speech, and whose

mind had hen running on it throughout the ensuing discussion, "did you notice that girl? She's a tearing little

By now it was nearly noon. The travellers carried the packs they had made up down to the waterside where

the canoe lay. Although the Indians would not get under way until the following morning, it had hen decided

In the course of the morning's business the news of their expedition had noised abroad. Especially were they

commiserated by the other runners and postkeepers. During all the winter these men had lived under the

frown of the North, conducting their affairs confidently yet with caution, sure of themselves, yet never sure of

the great power in whose tolerance they existed, in spite of whom they accomplished. Now was the appointed

time of rest. In the relaxation of the thought they found pity for those ordered out of season into the Silent

So at the river's bank Sam Bolton and Dick Herron, ready for departure, found a group gathered. It was

supposed that these men were to act as scouts, to reconnoitre shrewdly in the Enemy's country, to spy out the

land, so that in the autumn the Company might throw into the wilderness new posts, to be inhabited during

"Look heem Bla'k Hevair Lak," advised Louis Placide; "I t'ink dose Ojibway mak' heem lots marten, mink la

"Lads," said Kern, the trader at Old Brunswick House, "if you're going up th' Missin�ibie just cast an eye on

But Kiwanee, the trusty, the trader at Flying Post, the only Indian in the Company's service holding rank as

a commissioned officer, grunted in contempt at the question, while Achard, of New Brunswick House,

motioned warningly toward the groups of Indian trappers in the background. "Hush, boy," said he to Herbert,

"news travels, and in the south are the Free Traders to snatch at a new country."

By now the voyageurs had turned their canoe over, slid it into the water, and piled the duffle amidships.

But before they had time to step aboard, came Virginia Albret, then seventeen years old and as slender and

graceful as a fawn. The daughter of the Factor, she had acquired a habit of command that became her well.

While she enunciated her few and simple words of wellwishing, she looked straight out at them from deep

black eyes. The two woodsmen, awed into a vast respect, fumbled their caps in their hands and noted, in the

unconscious manner of the forest frequenter, the fresh dusk rose of her skin, the sharply defined red of her

lips, the soft wheat colour of her hair. It was a gracious memory to carry into the Silent Places, and was in

itself well worth the bestowal. However, Virginia, as was her habit, gave presents. On each she bestowed a

long silk handkerchief. Sam Bolton, with a muttered word of thanks, stuffed his awkwardly into his shirt

bosom. Dick, on the other hand, with a gesture half of gallantry, half of bravado, stripped his own

handkerchief from his neck and cast it far into the current, knotting the girl's gift in its place. Virginia smiled.

For perhaps a mile their course threaded in and out the channel of a number of islands, then shot them into

the broad reach of the Moose itself. There they set themselves to straightforward paddling, hugging closely

the shore that they might escape as much as possible the full strength of the current. In this manner they made

rapid progress, for, of course, they paddled in the Indian fashionwithout heeding either elbow, and with a

strong thrust forward of the shoulders at the end of the stroke and they understood well how to take advantage

After an hour and a half they came to the first unimportant rapids, where they were forced to drop their

paddles and to use the long sprucepoles they had cut and peeled that morning. Dick had the bow. It was

beautiful to see him standing boldly upright, his feet apart, leaning back against the pressure, making head

against the hurrying water. In a moment the canoe reached the point of hardest suction, where. the river.

broke over the descent. Then the young man, taking a deep breath, put forth the strength that was in him. Sam

Bolton, poised in the stern, holding the canoe while his companion took a fresh hold, noted with approval the

boy's physical power, the certainty of his skill at the difficult river work, the accuracy of his calculations.

Whatever his heedlessness, Dick Herron knew his trade. It was, indeed, a powerful instrument that Galen

The canoe, torn from the rapid's grasp, shot into the smooth water above. Calmly Sam and Dick shook the

water from their poles and laid them across the thwarts. The Swish click! swish click of the paddles resumed.

Now the river began to hurry in the tenmile descent below the Abitibi. Although the smooth rush of water

was unbroken by the swirls of rapids, nevertheless the current proved too strong for paddling. The voyagers

were forced again to the canoe poles, and so toiled in graceful but strenuous labour the remaining hours of

their day's journey. When finally they drew ashore for the night, they had but just passed the mouth of French

To men as skilled as they, the making of camp was a brief affair. Dick, with his axe, cleared the space of

underbrush, and sought dry wood for fuel. The older man in the meantime hunted about until he found a dead

whitebirch sapling. This he easily thrust to the ground with a strong push of his band. The jar burst here and

there the hard envelope of the birch bark to expose a quantity of halfpowdery, decayed wood, dry as tinder

and almost as inflammable as gunpowder. Into a handful of this Sam threw the sparks from his flint and steel.

The bark itself fed admirably the first flame. By the time Dick returned, the fire was ready for his fuel.

They cooked tea in the copper pail, and roasted bacon on the ends of switches. This, with bread from the

Post, constituted their meal. After supper they smoked, banked the fire with green wood, and rolled

themselves in their blankets to sleep. It was summer, so they did not trouble to pitch their shelter.

The night died into silence. Slowly the fire worked from within through the chinks of the green logs. Forest

creatures paused to stare at it with steady eyes, from which flashed back a blaze as intense as the fire's own.

An owl took his station near and began to call. Overhead the brilliant aurora of the Far North palpitated in a

silence that seemed uncanny when coupled with such intensity of movement. Shadows stole here and there

like acolytes. Breezes rose and died like the passing of a throng. The woods were peopled with uncanny

influences, intangible, unreal, yet potent with the symbolism of the unknown Presence watching these men.

The North, calm, patient, biding her time, serene in the assurance of might, drew close to the camp in the

By and by a little pack of wolves came and squatted on their haunches just in the shadow. They were well fed

and harmless, but they sat there blinking lazily at the flames, their tongues lolling, exactly like so many

shaggy and goodhumoured dogs. About two o'clock Dick rolled out of his blanket and replenished the fire.

He did it somnolently, his eyes vacant, his expression that of a child. Then he took a halfcomprehending

glance at the heaven's promise of fair weather, and sank again into the warmth of his blanket. The wolves had

Now the small sack of flour and the side of bacon and the loose provisions brought from the Post could last

but a little time, and the journey was like to be long. The travellers were to be forced from now on, just as are

the wolves, the eagles, the hawks, the carcajous, and other predatory creatures of the woods, to give their first

thoughts to the day's sustenance. All other considerations gave way to this. This was the first, the daily tribute

to be wrested from the stubborn grasp of the North. Winning that, anything was possible; failing that, nothing

could follow but defeat. Therefore, valuable exceedingly were the two little steel traps and the twelvefoot

length of gillnet, the sharp, thin knives in the headed sheaths, and especially precious, precious above all

things else, the three hundred rounds of ammunition for the rifles. They must be guarded and cared for and

All the morning they had toiled against the current, sometimes poling, sometimes "tracking" by means of a

sixtyfoot codline. Dick looped this across his chest and pulled like a horse on the towpath, while Sam

Bolton sat in the stem with the steeringpaddle. The banks were sometimes precipitous, sometimes stony,

sometimes grown to the water's edge with thick vegetation. Dick had often to wade, often to climb and

scramble, sometimes even to leap from one foothold to another. Only rarely did he enjoy level footing and

the opportunity for a straight pull. Suddenly in a shallow pool, near the river's edge, and bordered with

waisthigh grass, he came upon a flock of black ducks. They were full grown, but as yet unable to fly. Dick

dropped his towline and ran forward with a shout. At once the ducks became confused, scattering in all

directions, squawking madly, spattering the water. The mother flew. The brood, instead of making for the

Here was the chance for fresh meat without the expenditure of a shot. Sam Bolton promptly disembarked. To

us it would have seemed a simple matter. But the black duck is an expert at concealment, even in the open.

He can do wonders at it when assisted by the shadows of long grass. And when too closely approached he can

glide away to right and left like a snake, leaving no rustle to betray his passage. Five minutes passed before

the first was discovered. Then it was only hocus Dick's keen eye had detected a faintly stirring grassblade

ten feet away, and hocus Dick's quick muscles had brought him like a tiger to the spot. He held up his victim

And although they had seen nine ducks go into the grass plot, which was not more than fifty feet across, they

In spite of the deliberation of their journeying, the Indians did not overtake them until nearly dark. It was just

above the junction of the Abitibi. The river was without current, the atmosphere without the suspicion of a

breeze. Down to the very water's edge grew the forest, so velvetdark that one could not have guessed where

the shadow left off and the reflection began. Not a ripple disturbed the peace of the water, nor a harsh sound

the twilight peace of the air. Sam and Dick had paddled for some time close to one bank, and now had paused

to enjoy their pipes and the cool of the evening. Suddenly against the reflected sky at the lower bend a canoe

loomed into sight, and crept smoothly and noiselessly under the forest shadow of the opposite bank. Another

followed, then another, and another and still another in regular interval. Not a sound could be heard. In the

distance their occupants gave the illusion of cowled figures the Indian women close wrapped in their

shawls, dropping their heads modestly or turning them aside as their customs commanded them to do on

encountering strangers. Against the evening glow of the reflected sky for a single instant they stood out in the

bright yellow of the new birchbark, the glow of warm colour on the women's dress. Then instantaneously, in

the darkness of the opposite bank, they faded wraithlike and tenuous. Like phantoms of the past they glided

by, a river's width away; then vanished around the upper bend. A moment later the river was empty.

"Th' squaws goin' ahead to start camp," commented. Sam Bolton, indifferently; "we'll have th' bucks along

Soon became audible shouts, cries, and laughter, the click of canoe poles. The business of the day was over.

Until nearly sundown the men's canoes had led, silent, circumspect, seeking game at every bend of the river.

Now the squaws had gone on to make camp. No more game was to be expected. The band relaxed, joking,

In a moment the canoes appeared, a long, unbroken string, led by Haukemah. In the bow sat the chief's son, a

lad of nine, wielding his little paddle skilfully, already intelligent to twist the prow sharply away from

submerged rocks, learning to be a canoeman so that in the time to come he might go on the Long Trail.

Each canoe contained, besides its two occupants, a variety of household goods, and a dog or two coiled and

motionless, his sharp nose resting between his outstretched forepaws. The tame crow Occupied an ingenious

Haukemah greeted the two white men cordially, and stopped paddling to light his pipe. One by one the other

"My brothers have made a long sun," observed old Haukemah. "We, too, have hastened. Now we have met,

and it is well. Down past the white rock it became the fortune of Twofingers to slay a caribou that stood by

the little water.* Also had we whitefish the evening before. Past the Island of the Three Trees were signs of

"We have killed but neeneesheeb, the duck," replied Dick, holding up one of the victims by the neck, "nor

"Drop in astern," said Dick to his companion in English, "it's the light of the evening, and I'm going to troll

One by one the canoes fell into line. Now, late in the day, the travel was most leisurely. A single strong stroke

of the paddle was always succeeded by a pause of contemplation. Nevertheless the light craft skimmed on

with almost extraordinary buoyancy, and in silent regularity the wooded points of the river succeeded one

Sam busied himself with the trollingspoon, but as soon as the last canoe was well beyond hearing he burst

"He was right behind us when you told me you were goin' to try the fishing, and he moved out th' way before

"Perhaps, but I don't believe it. He looked too almighty innocent. Another thing, did you notice he was alone

"Shows he ain't noways popular with th' rest. Generally they pair off. There's mostly something shady about

Already the Indian women had pitched the shelters, spreading squares of canvas, strips of birchbark or

tanned skins over roughly improvised leanto poles. A half dozen tiny fires, too, they had built, over which

some were at the moment engaged in hanging as many kettles. Several of the younger women were cleaning

fish and threading them on switches. Others brought in the small twigs for fuel. Among them could be seen

Maymaygw�n, the young Ojibway girl, gliding here and there, eyes downcast, inexpressibly graceful in

At once on landing the men took up their share of the work. Like the birds of the air and the beasts of the

wood their first thoughts turned to the assurance of food. Two young fellows stretched a gillnet across the

mouth of the creek. Others scattered in search of favourable spots in which to set the muskrat traps, to hang

Soon the camp took on the air of age, of long establishment, that is so suddenly to be won in the forest. The

kettles began to bubble; the impaled fish to turn brown. A delicious odour of openair cooking permeated the

air. Men filled pipes and smoked in contemplation; children warmed themselves as near the tiny fires as they

dared. Out of the dense blackness of the forest from time to time staggered what at first looked to be an

uncouth and misshapen monster, but which presently resolved itself into an Indian leaning under a burden of

spruceboughs, so smoothly laid along the haft of a long forked stick that the hearer of the burden could sling

it across his shoulder like a bale of hay. As he threw it to the ground, a delicate spicelike aroma disengaged

itself to mingle with the smell of cooking. Just at the edge of camp sat the wolfdogs, their yellow eyes

After the meal the women drew apart. Dick's eyes roved in vain, seeking a glimpse of the Ojibway girl. He

was too familiar with Indian etiquette to make an advance, and in fact his interest was but languidly aroused.

The men sat about the larger fire smoking. It was the hour of relaxation. In the blaze their handsome or

stronglined brown faces lighted goodhumouredly. They talked and laughed in low tones, the long syllables

of their language lisping and hissing in strange analogy to the noises of the fire or the forest or the rapids or

some other natural thing. Their speech was of the chances of the woods and the approaching visit to their

Ojibway brothers in the south. For this they had brought their grand ceremonial robes of deerskin, now

stowed securely in bags. The white men were silent. In a little while the pipes were finished. The camp was

asleep. Through the ashes and the embers prowled the wolfdogs, but halffed, seeking scraps. Soon they

took to the beach in search of castup fish. There they wandered all night long under the moon voicing their

Almost at first streak of dawn the women were abroad. Shortly after, the men visited their traps and lifted the

nets. In this land and season of plenty the catch had hen good. The snares had strangled three hares; the steel

traps had caught five muskrats, which are very good eating in spite of their appearance; the net had

intercepted a number of pickerel, suckers, and river whitefish. This, with the meat of the caribou, shot by

Three Fingers the day before, and the supplies brought from the Post, made ample provision.

Nevertheless, when the camp had hen struck and the canoes loaded, the order of march was reversed. Now

the men took the lead by a good margin, and the women and children followed. For in the wooded country

Heifer setting out, however, old Haukemah blazed a fair clean place on a firtree, and with hard charcoal

"Yes," replied Sam, "learned her when I was snowed up one winter with SearFace down by the Burwash

"'Abichikmen�t Moosam�kkj yank. Missow edookan owsi sek negi ' Why, it's Ojibway, not

Cree," he exclaimed. "They're just leaving a record. 'Good journey from Moose Factory, Big game has hen

seen.' Funny how plumb curious an Injun is. They ain't one could come along here and see th' signs of this

camp and rest easy 'till he'd figgered out how many they were, and where they were going, and what they

were doing, and all about it. These records are a kindhearted try to save other Injuns that come along a

whole lot of trouble. That's why old Haukemah wrote it in Ojibway 'stead of Cree: this is by rights Ojibway

"We'd better pike out, if we don't want to get back with th' squaws," suggested Dick.

About two hours before noon, while the men's squadron was paddling slowly along a flat bank overgrown

with grass and bushes, Dick and Sam perceived a sudden excitement in the leading canoes. Haukemah

stopped, then cautiously backed until well behind the screen of the point. The other canoes followed his

example. In a moment they were all headed down stream, creeping along noiselessly without lifting their

But instead of pausing when out of earshot for the purpose of uncasing the guns or landing a stalking party,

the Indians crept gradually from the shore, caught the current, and shot away down stream in the direction

The men rested the bow of their canoe lightly against the shore, and waited. In a short time the Indian canoes

In the short interval that had elapsed, the Indians had intercepted their women,. unpacked their baggage, and

arrayed themselves in their finest dress of ceremony. Buckskin elaborately embroidered with heads and silks

in the flower pattern, ornaments of brass and silver, sacred skins of the beaver, broad dashes of ochre and

vermilion on the naked skin, twisted streamers of coloured woolall added to the barbaric gorgeousness of

the oldtime savage in his native state. Each bowsman carried a long brassbound fortyfive "trade'gun,"

A half dozen of the younger men were landed. At once they disappeared in the underbrush. Although the two

white men strained their keen senses they were unable to distinguish by sight or sound the progress of the

The other men waited like bronze statues. After a long interval a pinewarbler uttered its lisping note.

Immediately the paddles dipped in the silent deerstalker's stroke, and the cavalcade crept forward around the

Dick swept the shore with his eye, but saw nothing. Then all heard plainly a halfsmothered grunt of

satisfaction, followed by a deep drawn breath. Phantomlike, without apparently the slightest directing

motion, the bows of the canoes swung like windvanes to point toward a little heap, of driftlogs under the

shadow of an elder bush. The hear was wallowing in the cool, wet sand, and evidently enjoying it. A moment

later he stuck his head over the pile of driftwood, and indulged in a leisurely survey of the river.

His eye was introspective, vacant, his mouth was half open, and his tongue lolled out so comically that Dick

almost laughed aloud. No one moved by so much as a band's breadth. The hear dropped back to his cooling

Now old Haukemah rose to his heights in the bow of his canoe, and began to speak rapidly in a low voice.

Immediately the animal bobbed into sight again, his wicked little eyes snapping with intelligence. It took him

some moments to determine what these motionless, brightcoloured objects might be. Then he turned toward

the land, but stopped short as his awakened senses brought him the reek of the young men who had hemmed

in his shoreward escape. He was not yet thoroughly alarmed, so stood there swaying uneasily back and forth,

after the manner of hears, while Haukemah spoke swiftly in the soft Cree tongue.

"Oh, makw�, our little brother," he said, "we come to you not in anger, nor in disrespect. We come to do you

a kindness. Here is hunger and cold and enemies. In the Afterland is only happiness. So if we shoot you, oh

He raised his tradegun and pulled the trigger. A scattering volley broke from the other canoes and from the

Now a tradegun is a gun meant to trade. It is a section of what looks to be gaspipe, bound by brass bands

to a long, clumsy, wooden stick that extends within an inch of the end of the barrel. It is supposed to shoot

ball or shot. As a matter of fact the marksman's success depends more on his luck than his skill. Were it not

for the WoodsIndian's extraordinary powers of stillbunting so that he can generally approach very near to

With the shock of a dozen little bullets the hear went down, snarling and biting and scattering the sand, but

was immediately afoot again. A black hear is not a particularly dangerous heist in ordinary

circumstancesbut occasionally he contributes quite a surprise to the experience of those who encounter him.

This hear was badly wounded and cruelly frightened. His keen sense of smell informed him that the bushes

contained enemieshow many he did not know, but they were concealed, unknown, and therefore dreadful.

In front of him was something definite. Heifer the astonished Indians could back water, he had dashed into

A simultaneous cry of alarm burst from the other Indians. Some began frantically to recharge their

muzzleloading tradeguns; others dashed toward the spot as rapidly as paddle or moccasin could bring

them. Haukemah himself roused valiantly to the defence, but was promptly upset and pounced upon by the

enraged animal. A smother of spray enveloped the scene. Dick Herron rose suddenly to his feet and shot. The

hear collapsed into the muddied water, his head doubled under, a thin stream of arterial blood stringing away

down the current. Haukemah and his steersman rose dripping. A short pause of silence ensued.

"Well, you are a wonder!" ejaculated Sam Bolton at last. "How in thunder did you do that? I couldn't make

The Indians gathered to examine in respectful admiration. Dick's bullet had passed from ear to ear. To them it

was wonderful shooting, as indeed it would have hen had it indicated anything but the most reckless luck.

Haukemah was somewhat disgusted at the wetting of his finery, but the hear is a sacred animal, and even

ceremonial dress and an explanation of the motives that demanded his death might not be sufficient to

appease his divinity. The women's squadron appeared about the bend, and added their cries of rejoicing to

The beautiful buckskin garments were hastily exchanged for ordinary apparel. By dint of much wading,

tugging, and rolling the carcass was teased to the dry beach. There the body was securely anchored by the

Not a shred was wasted. Whatever flesh would not be consumed within a few days they cut into very thin

strips and hung across poles to dry. Scraps went to the dogs, who were for once well fed. Three of the older

squaws went to work with bone scrapers to tan the hide. In this season, while the fur was not as long as it

would be later, it was fine and new. The other squaws pitched camp. No rightminded Indian would dream of

While these things were preparing, the older men cleaned and washed the hears skull very carefully. Then

they cut a tall pole, on the end of which they fastened the skull, and finished by planting the whole affair

securely near the running water. When the skull should have remained there for the space of twelve moons,

the sacred spirit of the departed heist would be appeased. For that reason Haukemah would not here leave his

customary hieroglyphic record when he should break camp. If an enemy should happen along, he could do

harm to Haukemah simply by overturning the trophy, whereas an unidentified skull might belong to a friend,

and so would be let alone on the chance. For that reason, too, when they broke camp the following day, the

expert trailers took pains to obliterate the, more characteristic indications of their stay.

Now abruptly the weather changed. The sky became overcast with low, gray clouds hurrying from the

northwest. It grew cold. After a few hours of indecision it began to rain, dashing the chill water in savage

gusts. Amidships in each canoe the household goods were protected carefully by means of the wigwam

covers, but the people themselves sat patiently, exposed to the force of the storm. Water streamed from their

hair, over their high checks, to drip upon their already sodden clothing. The buckskin of their moccasins

sucked water like so many sponges. They stepped indifferently in and out of the river,for as to their legs,

necessarily much exposed, they could get no wetterand it was very cold. Whenever they landed the grass

and bushes completed the soaking. By night each and every member of the band, including the two white

men, were as wet as though they had plunged overhead in the stream. Only there was this difference:

riverwater could have hen warmed gradually by the contact of woolen clothes with the body, but the chill of

Nor was there much comfort in the prospect when, weary and cold, they finally drew their canoes ashore for

the evening's camp. The forest was dripping, the ground soggy, each separate twig and branch cold and

slippery to the hand. The accumulated water of a day showered down at the slightest movement. A damp

Half measures or timid shrinkings would not do. Every one had to plunge boldly into the woods, had to seize

and drag forth, at whatever cost of showerbath the wilderness might levy, all the dead wood he could find.

Then the value of the birchbark envelope about the powdery touchwood became evident. The fire, at first

small and steamy, grew each instant. Soon a dozen little blazes sprang up, only to be extinguished as soon as

they had partially dried the site of wigwams. Hot tea was swallowed gratefully, duffel hung before the

flames. Nobody dried completely, but everybody steamed, and even in the pouring rain this little warmth was

comfort by force of contrast. The sleeping blankets were damp, the clothes were damp, the ground was damp,

the air was damp; but, after all, discomfort is a little thing and a temporary, and can be borne. In the

retrospect it is nothing at all. Such is the Indian's philosophy, and that is why in a rain he generally travels

The storm lasted four days. Then the wind shifted to the north, bringing clearing skies.

Up to now the river had hen swift in places, but always by dint of tracking or poling the canoes had hen

forced against the quick water. Early one forenoon, however, Haukemah lifted carefully the bow of his canoe

The portage struck promptly to the right through a tall, leafy woods, swam neckhigh in the foliage of small

growth, mounted a steep hill, and meandered over a bowlderstrewn, mossgrown plateau, to dip again, a

quarter of a mile away, to the banks of the river. But you must not imagine one of your easy portages of

Maine or lower Canada. This trail was faint and dim, here an excoriation on the surface of a fallen and

halfrotted tree, there a withered limb banging, again a mere sense in the forest's growth that others had

The canoe loads were dumped out on the beach. One after another, even to the little children, the people

shouldered their packs. The long sash was knotted into a loop, which was passed around the pack and the

hearer's forehead. Some of the stronger men carried thus upward of two hundred pounds.

Unlike a party of white men, the Indians put no system into their work. They rested when they Pleased,

chatted, shouted, squatted on their heels conversing. Yet somehow the task was accomplished, and quickly.

To one on an elevation dominating the scene it would have hen most picturesque. Especially noticeable were

those who for the moment stood idle, generally on heights, where their muscleloose attitudes and fluttering

draperies added a strangely decorative note to the landscape; while below plodded, heeding forward under

their enormous loads, an unending procession of patient toilers. In five minutes the portage was alive from

To Dick and Sam Bolton the traverse was a simple matter. Sam, by the aid of his voyager's sash, easily

carried the supplies and blankets; Dick fastened the two paddles across the thwarts to form a neckyoke, and

swung off with the canoe. Then they returned to the plateau until their savage friends should have finished the

Ordinarily white men of this class are welcome enough to travel with the Indian tribes. Their presence is

hardly considered extraordinary enough for comment. Sam Bolton, however, knew that in the present

He was not able to place it to his own satisfaction. It might be hocus of Bolton's reputation as a woodsman; it

might be hocus of Dick Herron's spectacular service to Haukemah in the instance of the hear; it might be that

careful talk had not had its due effect in convincing the Indians that the journey looked merely to the

establishment of new winter posts; Sam was not disinclined to attribute it to pernicious activity on the part of

the Ojibway. It might spring from any one of these. Nor could he quite decide its quality ; whether

friendly or inimical. Merely persisted the fact that he and his companion were watched curiously by the men

and fearfully by the women; that they brought a certain constraint to the camp fire.

Finally an incident, though it did not decide these points, brought their ambiguity nearer to the surface.

One evening old Haukemah received from the women the bear's robe fully tanned. Its inner surface had been

whitened and then painted rudely with a symbolical representation of the hunt. Haukemah spoke as follows,

"This is the robe of makw�, our little brother. His flesh we all ate of. But you who killed him should have his

He laid the robe at Dick's feet. Dick glanced toward his companion with the strange cast flickering

quizzically in his narrow eyes. "Fine thing to carry along on a trip like ours," he said in English. "I don't know

what to do with it. They've worked on it mighty near a week. I wish to hell they'd keep their old robe."

However, he stooped and touched it in sign of acceptance. "I thank my brother," he said in Cree.

"You'll have to bring it along," Sam answered in English. "We'll have to carry it while we're with them,

The Indian men were squatted on their heels about the fire, waiting gravely and courteously for this

conference, in an unknown tongue, to come to an end. The women, naturally interested in the disposal of

Suddenly Dick, inspired, darted to this group of women, whence he returned presently half dragging,

halfcoaxing a young girl. She came reluctantly, hanging back a little, dropping her head, or with an

embarrassed giggle glancing shyly over her shoulder at her companions. When near the centre of the men's

Promptly she made as though to escape, but stopped at a word from Haukemah. It was Maymaygw�n, the

Obediently she paused, Her eyes were dancing with the excitement of the adventure, an almost roguish smile

curved her mouth and dimpled her cheek, her lower lip was tightly clasped between her teeth as she stood

contemplating her heavily headed little moccasin, awaiting the explanation of this, to her,, extraordinary

She dropped her head lower, but glanced from the corner of her eye at the questioner.

"That explains why you're such a tearing little beauty," muttered the young man, again in English.

"The oldmen," he resumed, in Cree, "have given me this robe. Hocus I hold it very dear I wish to give it to

that people whom I hold dearest. That people is the Crees of Rupert's House. And hocus you are the fairest, I

Illexpressed as this little speech was, from the flowery standpoint of Indian etiquette, nevertheless its

subtlety gained applause. The Indians granted deep ejaculations of pleasure. "Good boy!" muttered Sam

Dick lifted the robe. and touched it to the girl's hand. She gasped in surprise, then slowly raised her eyes to

He stepped across the robe, which had fallen between them, circled the girl's upturned face with the flat of his

The kiss of ceremony is not unknown to the northern Indians, and even the kiss of affection sometimes to be

observed among the more demonstrative, but such a caress as Dick bestowed on Maymaygw�n filled them

with astonishment. The girl herself, though she cried out, and ran to hide among those of her own sex, was

not displeased; she rather liked it, and could not misread the admiration that had prompted it. Nor did the

other Indians really object. It was a strange thing to do, but perhaps it was a white man's custom. The affair

But at the moment of Dick's salute, Sam Bolton cried out sharply behind him. The young woodsman instantly

The ejaculation had also called the attention of every member of the band to the tableau. There could be

absolutely no doubt as to its meaning, the evident anger of the red, his attitude, his hand on the haft of his

He realised the fact, but his quick mind instantly turned the situation to his profit. Without attempting to alter

the malice of his expression, he nevertheless dropped his hand from his knifehilt, and straightened his figure

"This man speaks crooked words. I know the language of the saganash. He tells my brothers that he gives this

robe to Maymaygw�n hocus he holds it the dearest of his possessions, and hocus his heart is good towards

my brother's people. But to the other saganash he said these words'It is a little thing, and I do not wish to

He folded his arms theatrically. Dick Herron, his narrow eyes blazing, struck him full on the mouth a

The Chippewa was immediately on his feet, his knife in his hand. Instinctively the younger Crees drew near

to him. The old race antagonism flashed forth, naturally, without the intervention of reason. A murmur went

Sam Bolton arose quietly to take his place at Dick's elbow. As yet there was no danger of violence, except

from the outraged Chippewa. The .Crees were startled, but they had not yet taken sides. All depended on an

intrepid front. For a moment they stared at one another, the Indians uncertain, the AngloSaxons, as always,

fiercely dominant in spirit, no matter what the odds against them, as long as they are opposed to what they

Then a flying figure glided to the two. Maymaygw�n, palpitating with fear, thrust their rifles into the white

"Stop!" he commanded, sharply. "There is no need that friends should hear weapons. What are you doing, my

young men? Do you judge these saganash without hearing what they have to say? Ask of them if what the

The Cree young men, shaken from their instinctive opposition, sank back. It was none of their affair, after all,

but a question of veracity between Dick and his enemy. And the Chippewa enjoyed none too good a

"Damn if I didn't pick out the old idiot's best girl!" he cried to his companion; but the latter doubtfully shook

When next day the band resumed the journey, it became evident that Maymaygw�n was to be punished for

her demonstration of the night before. Her place in the bow of old Moose Cow's canoe was taken by a little

The travel ashore was exceedingly difficult. A dense forest growth of cedar and tamarack pushed to the very

edge of the water, and the rare open beaches were composed of smooth rocks too small to afford secure

footing, and too large to be trodden under. The girl either slipped and stumbled on insecure and

ankletwisting shale, or forced a way through the awful tangle of a swamp. As the canoeing at this point was

not at all difficult, her utmost efforts could not keep her abreast of the travellers.

Truth to tell Maymaygw�n herself did not appear to consider that she was hardly used. Indeed she let her

hair down about her face, took off the brilliant bits of color that had adorned her garments, and assumed the

"Look here, Sam," said he, "this thing ain't right at all. She got into all this trouble on our account, and we're

riding canoe here slick as carcajou in a pork cache while she pegs along afoot. Let's take her aboard."'

"Won't do," replied Sam, briefly, "can't interfere. Let those Injuns run themselves. They're more or less down

"Oh, you're too slow!" objected Dick. "What the hell do we care for a lot of copperskins from Rupert's

House! We ain't got anything to ask from them but a few pairs of moccasins, and if they don't want to make

The older man said nothing. His steady blue eyes rested on his companion's back not unkindly, although a

"Ka'ka'win!" she objected, in very real terror. "The oldmen have commanded that I take the Long Way,

"My brother is good to me, but I cannot, for the head men have ordered. It would go very hard with me, if I

"Oh, hell!" exploded petulant Dick in English, slamming his paddle down against the thwarts.

He leaped ashore, picked the girl up bodily, threw her almost with violence into the canoe, thrust the light

The girl dropped her face in her hands. When the white men's craft overtook the main band, she crouched still

lower, shuddering under the grim scrutiny of her people. Dick's lofty scorn looked neither to right nor left,

but paddled fiercely ahead until the Indians were well astern and hidden by the twists of the river. Sam

Only, when the tribesmen had hen left behind, he leaned forward and began to talk to the girl in lowvoiced

Ojibway, comforting her with many assurances, as one would comfort a child. After a time she ceased

trembling and looked up. But her glance made no account of the steady, old man who had so gently led her

from her slough of despond, but rested on the straight, indignant back of the glorious youth who had cast her

into it. And Sam Bolton, knowing the ways of a maid, merely sighed, and resumed his methodical paddling.

At the noon stop and on portage it was impossible to gauge the feeling of the savages in regard to the matter,

but at night the sentiment was strongly enough marked. Maymaygw�n herself, much to her surprise, was

no further censured, and was permitted to escape with merely the slights and sneers the women were able to

inflict on her. Perhaps her masters, possessed of an accurate sense of justice, realised that the latter affair had

not hen her fault. Or, what is more likely, their race antagonism, always ready in these fierce men of the

Silent Places, seized instinctively on this excuse to burst into a definite unfriendliness. The younger men

drew frankly apart. The older made it a point to sit by the white men's fire, but they conversed formally and

with many pauses. Day by day the feeling intensified. A strong wind had followed from the north for nearly a

week, and so, of course, they had seen no big game, for the wary animals scented them long before they came

in sight. Meat began to run low. So large a community could not subsist on the nightly spoils of the net and

traps. The continued illluck was attributed to the visitors. Finally camp was made for a day while Crooked

Nose, the best trailer and hunter of them all, went out to get a caribou. Dick, hoping thus to win a little good

The Indian walked very carefully through the mossy woods until he came upon a caribou trail still

comparatively fresh. Nobody but Crooked Nose could have followed the faint indications, but he did so, at

first rapidly, then more warily, finally at a very snail's pace. His progress was noiseless. Such a difficult result

was accomplished primarily by his quickness of eye in selecting the spots on which to place his feet, and also

to a great extent by the fact that he held his muscles so pliantly tense that the weight of his body came down

not all at once, but in increasing pressure until the whole was supported ready for the next step. He flowed

When the trail became fresh he often paused to scrutinise closely, to smell, even to taste the herbage broken

by the animal's hoofs. Once he startled a jay, but froze into immobility before the watchman of the, woods

had sprung his alarm. For full ten minutes the savage poised motionless. Then the bird flitted away, and he

It was already nearly noon. The caribou had hen feeding slowly forward. Now he would lie down. And

Crooked Nose knew very well that the animal would make a little detour to right or left so as to be able to

Crooked Nose redoubled his scrutiny of the broken herbage. Soon he left the trail, moving like a spirit,

noiselessly, steadily, but so slowly that it would have required a somewhat extended observation to convince

you that he moved at all. His headlike black eyes roved here and there. He did not look for a caribouno

such fool hebut for a splotch of brown, a deepening of shadow, a contour of surface which long experience

had taught him could not be due to the forest's ordinary play of light and shade. After a moment his gaze

centred. In the lucent, cool, green shadow of a thick clump of moose maples he felt rather than discerned a

certain warmth of tone. You and I would probably have missed the entire shadow. But Crooked Nose knew

that the warmth of tone meant the brown of his quarry's summer coat. He cocked his rifle.

But a caribou is a large animal, and only a few spots are fatal. Crooked Nose knew better than to shoot at

The dark colour dissolved. There were no abrupt movements, no noises, but suddenly the caribou seemed to

develop from the green shadow mist, to stand, his cars pricked forward, his lustrous eyes wide, his nostrils

quivering toward the unknown something that had uttered the sound. It was like magic. n animal was now

Crooked Nose raised the rifle, sighted steadily at the shoulder, low down, and pulled the trigger. A sharp

click alone answered his intention. Accustomed only to the old tradegun, he had neglected to throw down

Instantly the caribou snorted aloud and crashed noisily away. A dozen lurking Canada jays jumped to the tops

of spruces and began to scream. Red squirrels, in all directions, alternately whirred their rattles and chattered

Crooked Nose . glanced at the westering sun, and set out swiftly in a direct line for the camp of his

companions. Arrived there he marched theatrically to the white men, cast the borrowed rifle at their feet, and

returned to the side of the fire, where he squatted impassively on his heels. The bunt had failed.

All the rest of the afternoon the men talked sullenly together. There could be no doubt that trouble was afoot.

Toward night some of the younger members grew so bold as to cast fierce looks in the direction of the white

Finally late in the evening old Haukemah came to them. For some time he sat silent and grave, smoking his

"Little Father," said he at last, "you and I are old men. Our blood is cool. We do not act quickly. But other

men are young. Their blood is hot and swift, and it is quick to bring them spiritthoughts. * They say you

have made the wind, keewaydin, the north wind, to blow so that we can have no game. They say you

conjured Crooked Nose so that he brought back no caribou, although he came very near it. They say, too, that

you seek a red man to do him a harm, and their hearts are evil toward you on that account. They say you have

made the power of the oldmen as nothing, for what they commanded you denied when you brought our little

sister in your canoe. I know nothing of these things, except the last, which was foolishness in the doing," the

old man glanced sharply at Dick, puffed on his nearly extinguished pipe until it was well alight, and went on.

"My brothers say they are looking places for winter posts; I believe them. They say their hearts are kind

toward my people; I believe them. Keewaydin, the north wind, has many times before blown up the river,

and Crooked Nose is a fool. My heart is good toward you, but it is not the heart of my young men. They

murmur and threaten. Here our trails fork. My brothers must go now their own way."

"Good," replied Sam, after a moment. "I am glad my brother's heart is good. toward me, and I know what

An expression of relief overspread Haukemah's face. Evidently the crisis had hen more grave than he had

acknowledged. He thrust his hand inside his loose capote and brought forth a small bundle.

Sam looked them over. They were serviceable, strong deerskin, with high tops of white linen cloth procured

at the Factory, without decoration save for a slender line of silk about the tongue. Something approaching a

smile flickered over old Haukemah's countenance as he fished out of his side pocket another pair.

"For Eagleeye," he said, banding them to Dick. The young man had gained the sobriquet, not hocus of any.

remarkable clarity of vision, but from the peculiar aquiline effect of his narrow gaze.

The body of the moccasins were made of buckskin as soft as silk, smoked to a rich umber. The tops were of

fawnskin, tanned to milky white. Where the two parts joined, the edges had hen allowed to fall half over the

foot in an exaggerated welt, lined brilliantly with scarlet silk. The ornamentation was heavy and elaborate.

Such moccasins often consume, in the fashioning, the idle hours of months. The Indian girl carries them with

her everywhere, as her more civilised sister carries an embroidery frame. On dress occasions in the Far North

a man's standing with his womenkind can be accurately gauged by the magnificence of his footgear.

"Let these remind you always that my heart is good," said he. "I may tell my young men that you go?"

"Old fellow's a pretty decent sort," remarked Dick, after Haukemah had stalked away.

"There couldn't anything have happened better for us!" cried Sam. "Here I was wondering how we could get

away. It wouldn't do to travel with them much longer, and it wouldn't do to quit them without a good reason.

I'm mighty relieved to get shut of them. The best way over into the Kabinak�gam is by way of a little creek

the Injuns call the Mattawishguia, and that ought to be a few hours ahead of us now." He might have added

that all these annoyances, which he was so carefully discounting, had sprung from Dick's thoughtlessness; but

he was silent, sure of the young man's value when the field of his usefulness should be reached.

Dick Herron and Sam Bolton sat on the trunk of a fallen tree. It was dim morning. Through the haze that

shrouded the river figures moved. Occasionally a sharp sound eddied the motionless silencea paddle

dropped, the prow of a canoe splashed as it was lifted to the water, the tame crow uttered a squawk. Little by

little the groups dwindled. Invisible canoes were setting out, beyond the limits of vision. Soon there remained

but a few scattered, cowled figures, the last women hastily loading their craft that they might not be left

behind. Now these, too, thrust through the gray curtain of fog. The white men were alone.

With the passing of the multitude once again the North came close. Spying on the deserted camp an hundred

smaller woods creatures fearfully approached, brighteyed, alert, ready to retreat, but eager to investigate for

scraps of food that might have hen left. Squirrels poised in sprucetrees, leaped boldly through space, or

hurried across little open stretches of ground. Meathawks, their fluffy plumage smoothed to alertness,

swooped here and there. Momentary and hasty scurryings in the dead leaves attested the presence of other

animals, faint chirpings and rustlings the presence of other birds, following these their most courageous

foragers. In a day the Indian camp would have taken on the character of the forest; in a month, an ancient

ruin, it would have fitted as accurately with its surroundings as an acorn in the cup.

Now the twisted vapours drained from among the treetrunks into the river bed, where it lay, not more than

five feet deep, accurately marking the course of the stream. The sun struck across the tops of the trees. A

chickadee, upside down in brighteyed contemplation, uttered two flutenotes. Instantly a winterwren, as

though at a signal, went into ecstatic ravings. The North was up and about her daily business.

Sam Bolton and Dick finally got under way. After an hour they arrived opposite the mouth of a tributary

The Mattawishguia would he variously descried; in California as a river, in New England as a brook, in

Superior country as a trout stream. It is an hundred feet wide, full of rapids, almost all fast water, and, except

in a few still pools, from a foot to two feet deep. The bottom is of round, stones.

Travel by canoe in such a stream is a farce. The water is too fast to pole against successfully more than half

the time; the banks are too overgrown for tracking with the towline. About the only system is to get there in

the best way possible. Usually this meant that Dick waded at the bow and Sam at the stern, leaning strongly

against the current. Bowlders of all sorts harassed the free passage, stones rolled under the feet, holes of

striking unexpectedness lay in wait, and the water was icy cold. Once in a while they were able to paddle a

few hundred feet. Then both usually sat astride the ends of the canoe, their legs banging in the water in order

that the drippings might not fall inside. As this was the early summer, they occasionally kicked against trees

to drive enough of the numbness from their legs so that they could feel the bottom.

It was hard work and cold work and wearing, for it demanded its exact toll for each mile, and was as insistent

Dick, in the vigour of his young strength, seemed to like it. The leisure of travel with the Indians had barely

stretched his muscles. Here was something against which he could exert his utmost force. He rejoiced in it,

taking great lungfuls of air, heeding his shoulders, breaking through these outer defences of the North with

wanton exuberance, blind to everything, deaf to everything, oblivious of all other mental and physical

sensations except the delight of applying his skill and strength to the subduing of the stream.

But Sam, patient, uncomplaining, enduring, retained still the broader outlook. He, too, fought the water and

the cold, adequately and strongly, but it was with the unconsciousness of long habit. His mind recognised the

Forest as well as the Stream. The great physical thrill over the poise between perfect health and the opposing

of difficulties he had left behind him with his youth; as indeed he had, in a lesser sense, gained with his age

an indifference to discomfort. He was cognisant of the stillness of the woods, the presence of the birds and

beasts, the thousand subtleties that make up the personality of the great forest.

And with the strange sixth sense of the accustomed woodsman Sam felt, as they travelled, that something was

wrong. The impression did not come to him through any of the accustomed channels. In fact, it hardly

reached his intellect as yet. Through long years his intuitions had adapted themselves to their environment.

The subtle influences the forest always disengaged found in the delicately attuned fibres of his Heinz that

which vibrated in unison with them. Now this adjustment was in some way disturbed. To Sam Bolton the

forest was different, and this made him uneasy without his knowing why. From time to time he stopped

suddenly, every nerve quivering, his nostrils wide, like some wild thing alert for danger. And always the

other five senses, on which his mind depended, denied the sixth. Nothing stirred but the creatures of the

Yet always the impression persisted. It was easily put to flight, and yet it always returned. Twice, while Dick

rested in the comfort of tobacco, Sam made long detours back through the woods, looking for something, he

knew not what; uneasy, he knew not why. Always he found the forest empty. Everything, well ordered, was

in its accustomed place. He returned to the canoe, shaking his head, unable to rid himself of the sensation of

At noon the men drew ashore on a little point of rock. There they boiled tea over a small fire, and ate the last

of their pilot's bread, together with bacon and the cold meat of partridges. By now the sun was high and the

air warm. Tepid odours breathed from the forest, and the songs of familiar homely birds. Little heated breezes

puffed against the travellers' cheeks. In the sun's rays their garments steamed and their muscles limbered.

Yet even here Sam Bolton was unable to share the relaxation of mind and body his companion so absolutely

enjoyed. Twice he paused, food suspended, his mouth open, to listen intently for a moment, then to finish

carrying his band to his mouth with the groping of vague perplexity. Once he arose to another of his

purposeless circles through the woods. Dick paid no attention to these things. In the face of danger his

faculties would be as keenly on the stretch as his comrade's; but now, the question one merely of difficult

travel, the responsibility delegated to another, he bothered his head not at all, but like a good lieutenant left

everything to his captain, half closed his eyes, and watched the smoke curl from his brier pipe.

When evening fell the little fishnet was stretched below a chute of water, the traps set, snares laid. As long

as these means sufficed for a food supply, the ammunition would be saved. Wet clothes were bung at a

Sam was up and down all night, uncomfortable, indefinitely groping for the influence that unsettled his peace

of mind. The ghost shadows in the pines; the pattering of mysterious feet; the cries, loud and distant, or faint

and near; the whisperings, whistlings, sighings, or crashes; all the thousand ethereal essences of daytime

noises that go to make up the Night and her silencesthese he knew. What he did not know, could not

understand, was within himself. What he sought was that thing in Nature which should correspond.

The next day at noon he returned to Dick after a more than usually long excursion, carrying some object. He

laid it before his companion. The object proved to be a flat stone; and on the flat stone was the wet print of a

"It's too blurred," he said, at last; "I can't make it out. But th' man who made that track wasn't far of. Couldn't

you make trail of him? He must have hen between you an' me when you found this rock."

"No," Sam demurred, "he wasn't. This moccasin was pointed down stream. He heard me, and went right on

down with th' current. He's sticking to the water all the way so as to leave no trail."

"It's that Chippewa, of course," proffered Sam. "I always was doubtful of him. Now he's followin' us to see

what we're up to. Then, he ain't any too friendly to you, Dick, 'count of that scrap and th' girl. But I don't

think that's what he's up tonot yet, at least. I believe he's some sort of friend or kin of that Jingoss, and he

"Two to one "' surmised Bolton, laconically. "He's only got a tradegun one shot. But more likely he

thinks it ain't going to do him much good to lay us out. More men would be sent. If th' Company's really after

Jingoss, the only safe thing for him is a warning. But his friend don't want to get him out of th' country on a

"He don't know yet that we've discovered him," submitted Sam. "My scouting around looked like huntin', and

he couldn't a seen me pick up that stone. We better not try to catch him till we can make 8ure. He's got to

camp somewhere. We'll wait till night. Of course he'll get away from th' stream, and he'll cover his trail. Still,

they's a moon. I don'tbelieve anybody could do it but you, Dick. If you don't make her, why there ain't

nothing lost. Well just have to camp down here an' go to trapping until he gets sick of banging around."

So it was agreed. Dick, under stress of danger, was now a changed man. What he lacked in experience and

the power to synthesise, he more than made up in the perfection of his senses and a certain natural instinct of

the woods. He was a better trailer than Sam, his eyesight was keener, his hearing more acute, his sense of

smell finer, his every nerve alive and tingling in vibrant unison with the life about him. Where Sam

laboriously arrived by the aid of his forty years' knowledge, the younger man leaped by the swift indirection

of an Indian or a woman. Had he only possessed, as did Bolton, a keen brain as well as keen higher

The old man sat near the campfire after dark that night sure that Herron was even then conducting the affair

better than he could have done himself. He had confidence. No faintest indication even in the uncertainty

of moonlight through the trees that a man had left the river would escape the young man's minute

inspection. And in the search no twig would snap under those softmoccasined feet; no betraying motion of

brush or brake warn the man he sought. Dick's woodcraft of that sort was absolute; just as Sam Bolton's

woodcraft also was absoluteof its sort. It might he long, but the result was certain, unless the Indian

Now Sam Bolton sat near the fire waiting for the sound of a shot. From time to time he spread his gnarled,

carvedmahogany hands to the blaze. Under his narrow hat his kindly grayblue eyes, wrinkled at the

corners with speculation and good humour, gazed unblinking into the light. As always he smoked.

Time went on. The moon climbed, then descended again. Finally it shone almost horizontally through the

treetrunks, growing larger and larger until its field was crackled across with a frostwork of twigs and leaves.

By and by it reached the edge of a hillbank, visible through an opening, and paused. It had become huge,

gigantic, big with mystery. A wolf sat directly before it, silhouetted sharply. Presently he raised his pointed

The fire died down to coals. Sam piled on fresh wood. It hissed spitefully, smoked voluminously, then leaped

into flame. The old woodsman sat as though carved from patience, waiting calmly the issue.

Then through the shadows, dancing ever more gigantic as they became more distant, Sam Bolton caught the

solidity of something moving. The object was as yet indefinite, mysterious, flashing momentarily into view

and into eclipse as the treetrunks intervened or the shadows flickered. The woodsman did not stir; only his

eyes narrowed with attention. Then a branch snapped, noisy, carelessly broken. Sam's expectancy flagged.

But in a moment the watcher could make out that the figures were two; one erect and dominant, the other

stooping in surrender. Sam could not understand. A prisoner would be awkward. But he waited without a

motion, without apparent interest, in the indifferent attitude of the woodsrunner.

Now the two neared the outer circle of light; they stepped within it; they stopped at the fire's edge. Sam

Dick pulled the girl roughly to the fireside, where he dropped her arm, leaving her downcast and submissive.

He was angry all through with the powerless rage of the man whose attentions a woman has taken more

seriously than he had intended. Suddenly he was involved more deeply than he had meant.

"What you doing here?" asked Sam in Ojibway, although he knew what the answer would he.

"Well, keep your hair on," advised Sam Bolton, with a grin. "You shouldn't be so attractive, Dicky."

"Do with her?" exploded Dick; "what in bell do you mean? I don't want her; she's none of my funeral. She's

"Oh, sure!" agreed Sam. "She's got to go back. Sure thing! It's only two days down stream, and then the Crees

would have only four days' start and getting farther every minute. A mere ten days in the woods without an

outfit. Too easy; especially for a woman. But of course you'll give her your outfit, Dick."

Be mused, gazing into the flames, his eyes droll over this new complication introduced by his thoughtless

"Well, we can't have her with us," objected Dick, obstinately. "She'd hinder us, and bother us, and get in our

way, and we'd have to feed her we may have to starve ourselves; and she's no damn use to us. She

can't go. I won't have it; I didn't bargain to lug a lot of squaws around on this trip. She came; I didn't ask her

to. Let her get out of it the best way she can. She's an Injun. She can make it all right through the woods. And

"No mess about it. I haven't anything to do with such a fool trick. What did she expect to gain tagging us

through the woods that way half a mile to the rear? She was just waiting 'till we got so far away from th'

Crees that we couldn't send her back. I'll fool her on that, damn her!" Be kicked a log back into place, sending

"Keep your hair on, my son," advised Sam again. "You're hot because you thought you'd got shut of th' whole

"Mebbe," admitted the woodsman. Be fell silent, staring straight before him, emitting short puffs from his

"I'll start her back in the morning," proffered Dick after a few moments. Then, as this elicited no remark, "We

can stock her up with jerky, and there's no reason she shouldn't make it." Sam remained grimly silent. "Is

there?" insisted Dick. Be waited a minute for a reply. Then, as none came, "Bell!" be exclaimed, disgustedly,

and turned away to sit on a log the other side of the fire with all the petulance of a child.

"Now look here, Sam," be broke out, after an interval. "We might as well get at this thing straight. We can't

Dick reddened slowly, got up with an incidental remark about damn fools, and began to spread his blankets

beneath the leanto shelter. Be muttered to himself, angered at the dead opposition of circumstance which be

"Why you come?" be demanded in Ojibway. "Where you get your blankets? Where you get your grub? How

you make the Long Trail? What you do when we go far and fast? What we do with you now?" Then meeting

nothing but the stolidity with which the Indian always conceals pain, be flung her aside. "Stupid owl!" be

Be sat on the ground and began to take off hi ' a moccasins with ostentatious deliberation, abruptly indifferent

to it all. Slowly be prepared for the night, yawning often, looking at the sky, arranging the fire, emphasising

and delaying each of his movements as though to prove to himself that be acknowledged only the habitual. At

last be turned in, his shoulder thrust aggressively toward the two motionless figures by the fire.

It was by now close to midnight. The big moon had long since slipped from behind the solitary wolf on the

hill. Yet Sam Bolton made no move toward his blankets, and the girl did not stir from the downcast attitude

into which she had first fallen. The old woodsman looked at the situation with steady eyes. Be realised to the

full what Dick Herron's thoughtlessness had brought on them. A woman, even a savage woman inured to the

wilderness, was a hindrance. She could not travel as fast nor as far; she could not bear the same burdens,

endure the same hardship; she would consume her share of the provisions. And before this expedition into the

Silent Places should be finished the journeying might require the speed of a course after quarry, the packing

would come finally to the men's back, the winter would have to be met in the open, and the North, lavish

during these summer months, sold her sustenance dear when the snows fell. The time might come when these

men would have to arm for the struggle. Cruelty, harshness, relentlessness, selfishness, singleness of purpose,

hardness of heart they would have perforce to assume. And when they stripped for such a struggle, Sam

Bolton knew that among other things this woman would have to go. If the need arose, she would have to

die, for this quest was greater than the life of any woman or any man. Would it not be better to send her

back through certain hardship now, rather than carry her on to a possible death in the White Silence. For the

"Sister," said the woodsman, kindly, "I am an old man. You have called me Father. Why have you followed

"I found Jibiw�nisi good in my sight," she said, with a simple dignity, "and be looked on me."

A little puzzled at this insistence, delivered in so calm a manner, Sam hesitated as to what to say. Suddenly

"Little Father," she said, solemnly, "I cannot go. Those are not my people. I do not know my people. My

heart is not with them. My heart is here. Little Father," she went on, dropping her voice, "it is here, here,

here!" she clasped her breast with both hands. "I do not know how it is. There is a pain in my breast, and my

heart is sad with the words of Eagleeye. And yet here the birds sing and the sun is bright. Away from here it

is dark. That is all I know. I do not understand it, Little Father. My heart is here. I cannot go away. If you

drive me out, I shall follow. Kill me, if you wish, Little Father; I do not care for that. I shall not binder you on

the Long Trail. I shall do many things. When I cannot travel fast enough, then leave me. My heart is here; I

cannot go away." She stopped abruptly, her eyes glowing, her breath short with the quivering of passion.

Then all at once her passivity fell on her. She stood, her bead downcast, patient, enduring, bending to

Sam Bolton made no reply to this appeal. Be drew his sheathknife, cut in two the doubled threepoint

blanket, gave one of the halves to the girl, and indicated to her a place under the shelter. In the firelight his

face hardened as be cast his mind again over the future. Be had not solved the problem, only postponed it. In

At two o'clock, waking in the manner of woodsmen and sailors the world over, be arose to replenish the fire.

Be found it already bright with new fuel, and the Indian girl awake. She lay on be r side, the blanket about her

shoulders, her great wistful eyes wide open. A flame shot into the air. It threw a momentary illumination into

the angles of the shelter, discovering Dick, asleep in heavy exhaustion, his right forearm across his eyes. The

girl stole a glance at Sam Bolton. Apparently be was busy with the fire. She reached out to touch the young

Dick was afoot after a few hours' sleep. Be aroused Sam and went about the preparation of breakfast.

Maymaygw�n attempted to help, but both she and her efforts were disregarded. She brought wood, but

Dick rustled a supply just the same, paying no attention to the girl's little pile; she put on fresh fuel, but Dick,

without impatience,indeed, as though be were merely rearranging the fire, contrived to undo her work;

she brought to hand the utensils, but Dick,, in searching for them, always looked where they had originally

been placed. His object seemed not so much to thwart the girl as to ignore her. When breakfast was ready be

divided it into two portions, one of which be ate. After the meal be washed the few dishes. Once be took a

cup from the girl's hand as she was drying it, much as be would have taken it from the top of a stump. Be then

Maymaygw�n made no sign that she noticed these things. After a little she helped Sam roll the blankets,

strike the shelter, construct the packs. Here her assistance was accepted, though Sam did not address her.

The first few hours were spent as before, wading the stream. As she could do nothing in the water,

Maymaygw�n kept to the woods, walking stolidly onward, her face to the front, expressionless, hiding

whatever pain she may have felt. This side of noon, however, the travellers came to a cataract falling over a

It became necessary to portage. The hill pinched down steep and close. There existed no trails. Dick took the

little camp axe to find a way. Be clambered up one after the other three ravinesgrown with brush and heavy

ferns, damp with a trickle of water, always to be stopped near the summit by a blank wall impossible to

scale. At length be found a passage be thought might be practicable. Thereupon be cut a canoe trail back to

In clearing this trail his attention turned to making room for a canoe on a man's back. Therefore the footing

be bothered with not at all. Saplings be clipped down by bending them with the left band, and striking at the

strained fibres where they bowed. A single blow would thus fell treelets of some size. When be had finished

his work there resulted a winding, cylindrical hole in the forest growth some three feet from the ground.

Through this cylinder the canoe would be passed while its bearer picked a practised way among slippery

rocks, old stubs, new sapling stumps, and undergrowth below. Men who might, in later years, wish to follow

this Indian trail, would look not for footprints but for waisthigh indications of the axe.

When the canoe had been carried to the top of the bluff that marked the waterfall, it was relaunched in a

pool. In the meantime Maymaygw�n, who had at last found a use for her willingness, carried the packs.

Dick reembarked. His companion perceived that be intended to shove off as soon as the other should have

taken his place. Sam frustrated that, however, by holding fast to the gunwale. Maymaygw�n stepped in

amidships, with a halfdeprecating glance at the young man's inscrutable back. At the end of the brief

Late that afternoon the travel for a half mile became exceedingly difficult. The stream took on the character

of a mountain brook. It hardly paid to float the canoe in the tiny holes among the rocks, miniature cascades,

and tortuous passages. The forest grew to the very banks, and arched over to exclude the sun. Every few feet

was to be avoided a tree, half clinging to the bank, leaning at a perilous slant out over the creek. Fortunately

the spring freshets in this country of the great snows were powerful enough to sweep out the timber actually

fallen, so the course of the stream itself was clear of jams. At length the travellers reached a beaverdam, and

so to a little round lake among the bills. They had come to the bead waters of the Mattawishguia.

In the lake stood two moose, old and young. Dick succeeded in killing the yearling, though it took two shots

from his Winchester. It was decided to camp here over one day in order that the meat might be saved.

A circle of hills surrounded the little body of water. On them grew maples and birches, among which

scattered a few hemlocks and an occasional pine. At the edge of the water were cedars leaning out to look at

their reflections. A deep and solemn peace seemed to brood over the miniature lake. Such affairs as bird

songs, the slap of a paddle, the shots from Dick's rifle could not break this strange stillness. They spoke

hastily, and relapsed to silence, like the rare necessary voices in a room where one lies dead. The hush, calm

and primal, with the infinity of the wilderness as its only measure of time, took no account of the shock of a

second's interruption. Two loons swam like ghosts. Everywhere and nowhere among the trees, in the hills,

over the water, the finer senses were almost uneasily conscious of a vast and awful presence. It was as yet

aloof, unheeding, buddhistic, brooding in nirvanic calm, still unawakened to put forth the might of its

displeasure. Under its dreaming eyes men might, fearfully and with reverence, carry on their affairs,

fearfully and with reverence, catching the breath, speaking low, growing silent and stern in the presence of

At the little camp under the cedars, Dick Herron and Sam Bolton, assisted by the Ojibway girl,

Maymaygw�n, cut the moosemeat into thin strips, salted, and dried it in the bright sun. And since the

presence of loons argued fish, they set their nets and lines. Several days thus passed.

In their relations the three promptly settled back into a species of routine. Men who travel in the Silent Places

speedily take on the colour of their surroundings. They become silent also. A band of voyageurs of sufficient

strength may chatter and sing; they have by the very force of numbers created an atmosphere of their own.

But two are not enough for this. They have little to say, for their souls are laved by the great natural forces.

Dick Herron, even in ordinary circumstances, withdrew rather grimly into himself. Be looked out at things

from beneath knit brows; be held his elbows close to his sides, his fists clenched, his whole spiritual being

selfcontained and apart, watchful for enmity in what be felt but could not understand. But to this, his normal

habit, now was added a sullenness almost equally instinctive. In some way be felt himself aggrieved by the

girl's presence. At first it was merely the natural revolt of a very young man against assuming responsibility

be had not invited. The resulting discomfort of mind, however, be speedily assigned to the girl's account. Be

continued, as at first, to ignore her. But in the slow rumination of the forest be became more and more

irritably sensible of her presence. Sam's taciturnity was contrastedly sunny and open. Be looked on things

about him with the placid receptivity of an old man, and said nothing because there was nothing to say. The

Ojibway girl remained inscrutable, helping where she could, apparently desirous of neither praise nor blame.

At the end of three days the provisions were ready. There had resulted perhaps sixty pounds of "jerky." It

now became necessary to leave the waterway, and to strike directly through the forest, over the hills, and

Dick shouldered a thirtypound pack and the canoe. Sam Bolton and the girl managed the remainder. Every

twenty minutes or so they would rest, sinking back against the trunks of trees, mossy stones, or a bank of new

ferns. The forest was open and inexpressibly lofty. Moose maples, young birches, and beeches threw their

coolness across the face, then above them the columns of the trunks, then far up in green distance the leaves

again, like the goldset roof of a church. The hill mounted always before them. Ancient rocks hoary with

moss, redolent of dampness, stood like abandoned altars given over to decay. A strange, sweet wind freighted

Nothing was said. Dick led the way and set the intervals of the carrying. When be swung the canoe from his

shoulders the others slipped their tumplines. Then all rubbed their faces with the broad caribouleaf to keep

off the early flies, and lay back, arms extended, breathing deep, resting like boxers between the rounds. Once

at the top of the ridge Dick climbed a tree. Be did this, not so much in expectation of seeing the

watercourses themselves, as to judge by the general lay of the country where they might be found.

In a bare open space under hemlocks Sam indicated a narrow, high, little pen, perhaps three feet long by six

"Marten deadfall," be pronounced. "Made last winter. Somebody's been trapping through here."

After a time a blaze on a tree was similarly remarked. Then the travellers came to a tiny creek, which, being

followed, soon debouched into a larger. This in turn became navigable, after the northcountry fashion. That

is to say, the canoe with its load could much of the time be floated down by the men wading in the bed of the

A dim trail led from the water to a sheltered knoll. There stood the framework of a pointed tepee, the long

poles spread like fingers above their crossing point. A little pile of gnawed white skulls of various sizes

represented at least a portion of the season's catch. Dick turned them over with his foot, identifying them idly.

From the sheltered branches of a nearby spruce bung four pairs of snowshoes cached there until the next

"A man, a woman, and two wellgrown children," be pronounced. Be ran his hand over the bulging raquette

with the long tail and the slightly upcurved end. "Ojibway pattern," be concluded. "Dick, we're in the first

Be went over the ground twice carefully, examining the state of the offal, the indications of the last fire.

"They've been gone about six weeks," be surmised. "If they ain't gone visiting, they must be downstream

somewheres. These fellows don't get in to trade their fur 'till along about August."

Two days subsequent, late in the afternoon, Dick pointed out what looked to be a dark streak beneath a

"Ninnymoosh," said the Indian girl, indifferently. It was the first word she had spoken since her talk with

The animal rose and began to bark. Two more crashed toward him through the bushes. A thin stream of

smoke disengaged itself from the tops of the forest trees. As they swept around the bend, the travellers saw a

The canoe floated on. About an hundred yards below the Indians Sam ordered a landing. Camp was made as

usual. Supper was cooked. The fire replenished. Then, just before the late sunset of the Far North, the bushes

"All right. I'll just keep my eye on this," Dick nodded toward the girl. "She's Ojibway, too, you know. She

The leaves parted. The Indian appeared, sauntering with elaborate carelessness, his beady eyes shifting here

The Indian advanced silently to the fireside, where be squatted on his heels. Be filled a pipe, scraping the

tobacco from the square plug Sam extended to him. While be did this, and while be stuffed it into the bowl,

Sam, watchful but also silent, could almost follow his mental processes. The canoe meant travel, the

meagreness of the outfits either rapid or short travel, the two steel traps travel beyond the sources of supply.

Then inspection passed lightly over the girl and from her to the younger man. With a flash of illumination

Sam Bolton saw how valuable in allaying suspicion this evidence of a peaceful errand might prove to be.

Abruptly the Indian spoke, going directly to the heart of the matter, after the Indian fashion.

The direction of travel was toward Winnipeg. Sam was perfectly aware of the discrepancy, but be knew better

This was understandable. Remained only the object of an expedition of this peculiar character. Sam Bolton

knew that the Indian would satisfy himself by surmises,be would never apply the direct question to a man's

affairs, and surmise might come dangerously near the truth. So be proceeded to impart a little information

Now a brigade is distinctly an institution of the Honourable the Hudson's Bay Company. It is used for two

purposes; to maintain communication with the outside world, and to establish winter camps in the autumn or

to break them up in the spring. At once the situation became clear. A gleam of comprehension flashed over

the Indian's eyes. With the peculiar attention to detail distinctively the forest runner's be indicated a route.

The next evening be visited the Indian's camp. It was made under a spreading tree, the tepee poles partly

resting against some of the lower branches. The squaw and her woman child kept to the shadows of the

wigwam, but the boy, a youth of perhaps fifteen years, joined the men by the fire.

Sam accepted the hospitality of a pipe of tobacco, and attacked the question in band from a ground tacitly

"If Hutson bay company make winterpost on Animiki will you get your debt there instead of Missin�ibie?" be

"Lots of fur. Is it going to last? Do you keep district strict here?" inquired Sam.

Under cover of this question Sam was feeling for important information. As has perhaps been mentioned, in a

normal Indian community each bead of a family is assigned certain hunting districts over which be has

exclusive hunting and trapping privileges. This naturally tends toward preservation of the fur. An Indian

knows not only where each beaver dam is situated, but be knows also the number of beaver it contains and

how many can be taken without diminution of the supply. If, however, the privileges are not strictly guarded,

such moderation does not obtain. When an Indian finds a dam, be cleans it out; because if be does not, the

next comer will. Sam's question then apparently had reference only to the probability that the fur in a close

district would be strictly enough preserved to make the establishment of a winter post worth while. In reality

be wanted to measure the possibility of an outsider's gaining a foothold. Logically in a section where the

tribal rights were rigidly held to, this would be impossible except through friendship or purchase; while in a

"Good keeping of district," replied the Indian. "I keep beadwaters of Kabinik�gam down to Sand River.

This sufficed for the moment. The next morning Sam went over early to the other camp.

"Today I think we go," be announced. "Now you tell me all the hunters, where I find them, what are their

"Ah hah!" assented the Indian. Sam's leisurely and indirect method had convinced him. Easily given

information on the other hand would have set him to thinking; and to think, with an Indian, is usually to

The two descended to the shore. There they squatted on their heels before a little patch of wet sand while the

Indian explained. Be marked roughly, but with almost the accuracy of a survey, the courses of streams and

hills, and told of the routes among them. Sam listened, his gnarled mahogany hand across his mouth, his

shrewd gray eyes bent attentively on the cabalistic signs and scratches. An Indian will remember, from once

traversing it, not only the greater landmarks, but the little incidents of bowlder, current, eddy, strip of woods,

bend of trail. It remains clearcut in his mind forever after. The old woodsman had in his long experience

acquired something of this faculty. Be comprehended the details, and, what is more, stored them away in his

With an abrupt movement of the back of his band the Indian smoothed the sand. Squatting back more on his

haunches, be refilled his pipe and began to tell of the trappers. In their description be referred always to the

map be had drawn on Bolton's imagination as though it had actually lain spread out before them. Sam

referred each name to its district, as you or I would write it across the section of a chart, and kept accurately

in mind which squares of the invisible map had been thus assigned and which not. It was an extraordinary

effort, but one not unusual among practised woods runners. This peculiarly minute and concrete power of

The Indian finished. Sam remained a moment in contemplation. The districts were all occupied, and the name

of Jingoes did not appear. That was, however, a small matter. The Ojibway might well have changed his

name, or be might be paying for the privilege of bunting in another man's territory. A less experienced man

would have been strongly tempted to the more direct question. But Sam knew that the faintest hint of ulterior

motive would not be lost on the Indian's sharp perceptions. An inquiry, carelessly and indirectly made, might

do no harm. But then again it might. And it was better to lose two years of time in the search than a single

After all, Sam Bolton was well satisfied. Be had, by his simple diplomacy, gained several valuable results. Be

had firmly convinced one man of a common body, wherein news travels quickly, of his apparent intentions;

be had, furthermore, an exact knowledge of where to find each and every district beadman of the whole

Kabinik�gam country. Whether or not the man be sought would prove to be one of these beadmen, or the

guest or lessee of one of them, was a question only to be answered by direct search. At least be knew where

"Migwetch thank you," be said to the Indian when be had finished. "I understand. I go now to see the

Lake. I go to talk to each of your bead men. I go to see the trapping country with my own eyes. When I have

The Indian nodded. It would have been quite inconceivable to him had Sam suggested accepting anything

The three resumed their journey that afternoon. Sam knew exactly where be was going. Dick had fallen into a

sullen yet rebellious mood, unaccountable even to himself. In his spirit was the ferment of a resentfulness

absolutely without logical object. With such a man ferment demands action. Here, in the accustomed labours

of this woods travel, was nothing to bite on save monotony. Dick Herron resented the monotony, resented the

deliberation necessary to so delicate a mission, resented the unvarying tug of his tumpline or the unchanging

yield of the water to his paddle, resented the placidity of the older man, above all resented the meek and

pathetic submissiveness of the girl. His narrow eyes concentrated their gaze ominously. Be muttered to

himself. The untrained, instinctive strength of the man's spirit fretted against delay. His enthusiasm, the fire

of his hope, urged him to earn his selfapproval by great exertion. Great exertion was impossible. Always,

day by day, night by night, be chafed at the snaillike pace with which things moved, chafed at the delay

imposed by the nature of the quest, the policy of the old man, the presence of the girl. Only, in the

rudimentary processes of his intelligence, be confused the three in one, and the presence of the girl alone

received the brunt of his sullen displeasure. In the splendour of his strength, bead down, heart evil, restrained

to a bitter obedience only by the knowledge that be could do nothing alone, be broke through the opposing

Sam Bolton gauged perfectly the spirit in his comrade, but paid it little attention. Be knew it as a chemical

reaction of a certain phase of forest travel. It argued energy, determination, dogged pluck when the need

should arise, and so far it was good. The woods life affects various men in various ways, but all in a manner

peculiar to itself. It is a reagent unlike any to be found in other modes of life. The moment its influence

reaches the spirit, in that moment does the man change utterly from the person be has been in other and

ordinary surroundings; and the instant be emerges from its control be reverts to his accustomed bearing. But

in the dwelling of the woods be becomes silent. It may be the silence of a selfcontained sufficiency; the

silence of an equable mind; the silence variously of awe, even of fear; it may be the silence of sullenness.

This, as much as the vast stillness of the wilderness, has earned for the region its designation of the Silent

Nor did the older woodsman fear any direct results from the younger's very real, though baseless, anger.

These men were bound together by something stronger than any part of themselves. Over them stood the

Company, and to its commands all other things gave way. No matter how rebellious might be Dick Herron's

heart, how ruffled the surface of his daily manner, Bolton knew perfectly well be would never for a single

instant swerve in his loyalty to the main object of the expedition. Serene in this consciousness, the old

woodsman dwelt in a certain sweet and gentle rumination of his own. Among the finer instincts of his being

many subtle mysteries of the forest found their correspondences. The feeling of these satisfied him entirely,

The days succeeded one another. The camps by the rivers or in the woods were in essential all alike. The

shelter, the shape, and size of the tiny clearing, the fire, the cooking utensils scattered about, the little articles

of personal belonging were the same. Only certain details of surrounding differed, and they were not of

importance,birchtrees for pop lars, cedar for both, a river bend to the northwest instead of the southwest,

still water for swift, a low bank for a high; but always trees, water, bank, and the sky brilliant with stars. After

a little the day's progress became a myth, to be accepted only by the exercise of faith. The forest was a great

treadmill in which men toiled all day, only to be surrounded at night by the same grandeurs and littlenesses

they had that morning left. In the face of this apparent futility time blew vast. Years were as nothing

And yet all knew by experience, though no one of them could rise to a realisation of the fact, that some day

their canoe would round the bend and they would find themselves somewhere. Then they could say to

themselves that they had arrived, and could tell themselves that between here and their startingpoint lay so

many hundred miles. Yet in their secret hearts they would not believe it. They would know that in reality it

lay but just around the corner. Only between were dreamdays of the shifting forest heavy with toil.

This is the enchantment the North lays on her children, so that when the toil oppresses them and death seems

to win, they may not care greatly to struggle, knowing that the struggle is vain.

In the country of the Kabinik�gam they visited thus many hunting districts. The travel neither hastened nor

lagged. From time to time it was necessary to kill, and then the meat must be cared for. Berries and wild rice

Sam Bolton, knowing now the men with whom be had to deal, found no difficulty in the exercise of his

simple diplomacy. The Ojibway defaulter was not to be beard of, but every nook searched without result

narrowed the remaining possibilities. Everything went well enough until late one afternoon.

The portage happened to lead above a narrow gorge over a rapids. To accomplish it the travellers had first to

scale a steep little hill, then to skirt a huge rounded rock that overhung the gorge. The roughness of the

surface and the adhesive power of their moccasins alone held them to the slant. These were well sufficient.

Unfortunately, however, Dick, without noticing it, had stepped into a little pool of water on disembarking.

Buckskin while dry is very adhesive; when wet very slippery. As be followed Sam out on the curving cheek

of the rock his foot slid, be lost his equilibrium, was on the edge of falling, overbalanced by the topheavy

pack be was carrying. Luckily Sam himself was portaging the canoe. Dick, with marvellous quickness,

ducked loose from the tumpline. The pack bounded down the slant, fell with a splash, and was whirled

away. With the impetus of the same motion the young man twisted himself as violently as possible to regain

his footing. Be would probably have succeeded had it not been for the Indian girl. She had been following the

two, a few steps in the rear. As Dick's foot turned, she slipped her own pack and sprang forward, reaching out

her arm in the hope of steadying him. Unfortunately she did this only in time to get in the way of the strong

twist Dick made for recovery. The young man tottered for an instant on the very brink of saving himself, then

Maymaygw�n, aghast at what she had done, stood paralyzed, staring into the gorge. Sam swung the canoe

The Indian girl saw the inert body of the woodsman dashed down through the moil and. water, now showing

an arm, now a leg, only once, for a single instant, the bead. Twice it hit obstacles, limp as a sack of flour.

Immediately she regained the use of her legs, and scrambled over the hill after Sam, her breath strangling her.

She found below the rapids a pool, and half in the water at its edge Dick seated, bruised and cut, spitting

water, and talking excitedly to his companion. Instantly she understood. The young woods runner, with the

rare quickness of expedient peculiar to these people, had allowed himself to be carried through the rapids

muscleloose, as an inanimate object would be carried, without an attempt to help himself in any way. It was

a desperate chance, but it was the only chance. The slightest stiffening of the muscles, the least struggle

would have thrown him out of the water's natural channel against the bowlders; and then a rigidly held body

would have offered only too good a resistance to the shock. By a miracle of fortune be had been carried

through, bruised and injured, to be sure, but conscious. Sam had dragged him to the bushgrown bank. There

"She did it!" be burst out, as soon as be could speak. "She did it a purpose! She reached out and pushed me!

With the instinct of the hunter be had managed to cling to his rifle. Be wrenched at the magazine lever,

throwing the muzzle forward for a shot, but it had been jammed, and be was unable to move it.

"She reached out and pushed me! I felt her do it!" be cried. Be attempted to rise, but fell back, groaning with

"Sam!" be muttered, "she's there yet. Kill her. Damn it, didn't you see! I had my balance again, and she

pushed me! She had it in for me!" His face whitened for an instant as be moved, then flooded with a red

anger. "My God!" be cried, in the anguish of a strong man laid low, "she's busted me all over!" Be wrenched

loose his shoulders from Sam's support, struggled to his knees, and fell back, a groan of pain seeming fairly

She came at once, running eagerly, the paralysis of her distress broken by his voice. Sam directed her by nods

of the bead. With some difficulty they carried the unconscious man to the flat and laid him down, his bead on

Sam's rolled coat. Then, while Maymaygw�n, under his curtly delivered directions, built a fire, heated

water, carried down the two remaining packs and opened them, Sam tenderly removed Dick's clothes, and

examined him from bead to foot. The cuts on the bead were nothing to a strong man; the bruises less.

Manipulation discovered nothing wrong with the collarbone and ribs. But at last Sam uttered a quick

An inexperienced man would have pronounced it a dislocation, but Sam knew better. Be knew better because

just once, nearly fifteen years before, be had assisted Dr. Cockburn at Conjuror's House in the caring for

exactly such an accident. Now be stood for some moments in silence recalling pain fully each little detail of

Rapidly by means of twigs and a tracing on the wet sand be explained to Maymaygw�n what was the

matter and what was to be done. The fibula, or outer bone of the leg, had been snapped at its lower end just

above the ankle, the foot had been dislocated to one side, and either the inner ligament of the ankle had given

way, orwhat would be more serious one of the anklebones itself had been torn. Sam Bolton realised

fully that it was advisable to work with the utmost rapidity, before the young man should regain

consciousness, in order that the reduction of the fracture might be made while the muscles were relaxed.

Nevertheless, be took time both to settle his own ideas, and to explain them to the girl. It was the luckiest

chance of Dick Herron's life that be happened to be travelling with the one man who had assisted in the

skilled treatment of such a case. Otherwise be would most certainly have been crippled.

Sam first of all pried from the inner construction of the canoe two or three of the flat cedar strips I used to

reinforce the bottom. These be laid in several thicknesses to make a board of some strength. On the board be

folded a blanket in wedge form, the thick end terminating abruptly three or four inches from the bottom. Be

laid aside several buckskin thongs, and set Maymaygw�n to ripping bandages of such articles of clothing

Then be bent the injured leg at the knee. Maymaygw�n held it in that position, while Sam manipulated the

foot into what be judged to be the proper position. Especially did be turn the foot strongly inward that the

inner anklebone might fall to its place. As to the final result be confessed himself almost painfully in doubt,

but did the best be knew. Be remembered the postsurgeon's cunning comments, and tried to assure himself

that the fractured ends of the bones met each other fairly, without the intervention of tendons or

musclecovering, and that there was no obstruction to the movements of the ankle. When be had finished, his

brow was wrinkled with anxiety, but be was satisfied that be had done to the limit of his knowledge.

Maymaygw�n now held the cedar board, with its pad, against the inside of the leg. Sam bound the thin end

of the wedgeshaped blanket to the knee. Thus the thick end of the pad pressed against the calf just above the

ankle, leaving the foot and the injured bone free of the board. Sam passed a broad buckskin thong about the

ankle and foot in such a manner as to bold the foot from again turning out. Thus the fracture was fixed in

The two then, with the utmost precaution, carried their patient up the bank to a level space suitable for a

camp, where be was laid as flat as possible. The main business was done, although still there remained certain

After the reduction of the fracture, which was actually consummated before Dick regained his

consciousness, and the carrying of the young man to the upper flat, Sam curtly instructed

Maymaygw�n to gather balsam for the dressing of the various severer bruises. She obtained the gum, a

little at a time, from a number of trees. Here and there, where the bark had cracked or been abraded,

hardskinned blisters had exuded. These, when pricked, yielded a liquid gum, potent in healing. While she

He realised fully that the affair was one of many weeks, if not of months. On the flat tongue overlooking the

river be cleared a wide space, and with the back of his axe be knocked the hummocks flat. A score or so of

sapling poles be trimmed. Three be tied together tripodwise, using for the purpose a strip of the inner bark

of cedar. The rest be leaned against these three. Be postponed, until later, the stripping of birchbark to cover

this frame, and gave his attention to laying a soft couch for Dick's convalescence. The foundation be made of

cariboumoss, gathered dry from the heights; the top of balsam boughs cleverly thatched so that the ends

curved down and in, away from the recumbent body. Over all he laid what remained of his own half blanket.

Above the bed he made a framework from which a sling would be hung to suspend the injured leg.

All this consumed not over twenty minutes. At the end of that time he glanced up to meet Dick's eyes.

He moved here and there, constructing, by means of flat stones, a trough to be used as a cookingrange. At

the edge of the clearing he met the Indian girl returning with her little birchbark saucer.

She did not ask him further., If she had any curiosity, she did not betray it; if she had any suspicion of what

Sam returned to where Dick lay. "Look here, Sam," said he, "this comes of" "Shut up!" said Sam again.

"Look here, you, you've made trouble enough. Now you're laid up, and you're laid up for a good long while.

This ain't any ordinary leg break. It means three months, and it may mean that you'll never walk straight

again. It's got to be treated mighty careful, and you've got to do just what I tell you. You just behave yourself.

It wasn't anybody's fault. That girl had nothing to do with it. If you weren't a great big fool you'd know it. We

both got to take are of you. Now you treat her decent, and you treat me decent. It's time you came off."

He said it as though he meant it. Nevertheless, it was with the most elaborate tenderness that he, assisted by

Maymaygw�n, carried Dick to his new quarters. But in spite of the utmost care, the transportation was

painful. The young man was left with no strength. The rest of the afternoon he dozed in a species of torpor.

Sam's energy toward permanent establishment did not relax. He took a long tramp in search of canoe birches,

from which at last he brought back huge rolls of thick bark. These he and the girl sewed together in

overlapping seams, using white spruceroots for the purpose. The result was a watertight covering for the

wigwam. A pile of firewood was the fruit of two hours' toil. In the meantime Maymaygw�n had caught

some fish with the book and line and had gathered some berries. She made Dick a strong broth of dried meat.

At evening the old man and the girl ate their meal together at the edge of the bluff overlooking the broil of the

river. They said little, but somehow the' meal was peaceful, with a content unknown in the presence of the

During the days that ensued a certain intimacy sprang up between Sam Bolton and the Indian girl. At first

their talk was brief and confined to the necessities. Then matters of opinion, disjointed, fragmentary, began to

creep in. Finally the two came to know each other, less by what was actually said, than by the attitude of

mind such confidences presupposed. One topic they avoided. Sam, for all his shrewdness, could not

determine to what degree had persisted the young man's initial attraction for the girl. Of her devotion there

could be no question, but in bow much it depended on the necessity of the moment lay the puzzle. Her

In the soft, sweet openair life the days passed stately in the manner of figures on an ancient tapestry. Certain

things were each morning to be done,the dressing of Dick's cuts and contusions with the healing balsam, the

rebandaging and adjusting of the splints and steadying buckskin strap; the necessary cooking and cleaning;

the cutting of wood; the fishing below the rapids; the tending of traps; the occasional hunting of larger game;

the setting of snares for rabbits. From certain good skins of the latter Maymaygw�n was engaged in

weaving a blanket, braiding the long strips after a fashion of her own. She smoked tanned buckskin, and with

it repaired thoroughly both the men's garments and her own. These things were to be done, though leisurely,

But inside the wigwam Dick Herron lay helpless, his hands clenched, his eyes glaring red with an impatience

he seemed to hold his breath to repress. Time was to be passed. That was all he knew, all he thought about,

all he cared. He seized the minutes, grimly and flung them behind him. So absorbed was he in this, that he

seemed to give grudgingly and hastily his attention to anything else. He never spoke except when absolutely

necessary; it almost seemed that he never moved. Of Sam he appeared utterly unconscious, The older man

performed the little services about him quite unnoticed. The Indian girl Dick would not suffer near him at all.

"You. wait till I can get out!" he said on another occasion, in vague threat of determination.

At the beginning of the third week Sam took his seat by the moss and balsam pallet and began to fill his pipe

"I'm going to leave you here and go to look over the other bunting districts by myself."

A long silence ensued. "She'll take everything we've got and get out," said Dick at last.

"I know I'm hard to get along with just now. Don't mind me. It's hell to lie on your back and be able to do

nothing. I've seemed to hinder the game from the first. Just wait till I'm up again!"

"That's all right, my boy," replied Sam. "I understand. Don't worry. Just take it easy. I'll look over the district,

"To hell with the girl," growled Dick, lapsing abruptly from his expansive mood. "She got me into this."

Not another word would he speak, but lay, staring upward, chewing the cud of resentment.

Promptly on the heels of his decision Sam Bolton had a long talk with Maymaygw�n, then departed

carrying a little pack. It was useless to think now of the canoe, and in any case the time of year favoured

crosscountry travel. The distances, thus measured, were not excessive, and from the Indian's descriptions,

Sam's slowbrooding memory had etched into his mind an accurate map of the country.

At noon the girl brought Dick his meal. After he had eaten she removed the few utensils. Then she returned.

Maymaygw�n did not reply, but left the tent. In a moment she reappeared carrying forked switches, a

"Thus it is," said she rapidly. "These be the leg bones and this the bone of the ankle. This bone is broken, so.

Thus it is held in place by the skill of the Little Father. Thus it is healing, with stiffness of the muscles and

the gristle, so that always Eagle eye will walk like wood, and never will he run. The Little Father has told

Maymaygw�n what there is to do. It is now the time. Fifteen suns have gone since the hurt."

She spoke simply. Dick, interested in spite of himself, stared at the switches and the hasty charcoal sketch.

The dead silence bung for a full minute. Then the young man fell back from his elbow with an enigmatical

snort. Maymaygw�n assumed consent and set to work on the simple yet delicate manipulations, massages,

and flexings, which, persisted in with due care lest the fracture slip, would ultimately restore the limb to its

Once a day she did this, thrice a day she brought food. The rest of the time she was busy about her own

affairs; but never too occupied to loop up a section of the tepee covering for the purpose of admitting fresh

air, to bring a cup of cold water, to readjust the sling which suspended the injured leg, or to perform an

hundred other little services. She did these things with inscrutable demeanour. As Dick always accepted them

in silence, she offered them equally in silence. No one could have guessed the thoughts that passed in her

At the sound of his voice the girl started forward. Her mouth parted, her eyes sparkled, her nostrils quivered.

Nothing could have hen more pathetic than this sudden ecstatic delight, as suddenly extinguished when she

perceived that the exclamation was involuntary and not addressed to her. In a moment Sam Bolton appeared,

He unslung his little pack, leaned his rifle against a tree, consigned to Maymaygw�n a dog he was leading,

But at the sight of the man striding in his strength Dick's dull anger had fallen on him again like a blanket.

Unreasonably, as he himself well knew, he was irritated. Something held him back from the utterance of the

hearty words of greeting that had hen on his tongue. A dull, apathetic in difference to everything except the

"Bone's in place all right," he commented. "Has the girl rubbed it and moved it every day?"

"Took in the country to southeast. Didn't find anything. Picked up a pretty good dog. Part 'husky.' 'J'

Dick had no comment to make on this. Sam found Maymaygw�n making friends with the dog, feeding

him little scraps, patting his head, above all wrinkling the end of his pointed nose in one hand and batting it

softly with the palm of the other. This caused the dog to sneeze violently, but he exhibited every symptom of

enjoyment. The animal had long, coarse hair, sharp ears set alertly forward, a bushy tail, and an expression of

"I have done as the Little Father commanded," she replied, and arose to cook the meal.

"Listen, Little Sister," said he. "Now I go on a long journey, perhaps fifteen suns, perhaps one moon. At the

end of six suns more Jibib�nisi may rise. His leg must be slung, thus. Never must he touch the foot to the

ground, even for an instant. You must see to it. I will tell him, also. Each day he must sit in the sun. He must

do something. When snow falls we will again take the long trail. Prepare all things for it. Give Eagleeye

"I'm off again, Dick," said he. "There's no help for it; you've got to lay up there for a week yet. Then the girl

will show you bow to tie your leg out of the way, and you can move on crutches. If you rest any weight on

that foot before I get back, you'll be stiff for life. I shouldn't advise you to take any chances. Suit yourself ;

but I should try to do no more than get out in the sun. You won't be good for much before snow. You can get

things organised. She'll bring you the stuff to work on, and will help. So long."

"Goodby," muttered Dick. He breathed bard, fully occupied with the thought of his helplessness, with blind,

unappeasable rage against the chance that had crippled him, with bitter and useless questionings as to why

such a moment should have hen selected for the one accident of his young life. Outside he could hear the

crackle of the little fire, the unusual sound of the Indian girl's voice as she talked low to the dog, the animal's

whine of appreciation and content. Suddenly he felt the need of companionship, the weariness of his own

Maymaygw�n almost instantly appeared in the entrance, a scarcely concealed hope shining in her eyes.

She turned to whistle the heist. He came at once, already friends with this human Heinz, who understood him.

But the halfwild animal was in doubt. He required assurance of this man's intentions. Dick gave himself to

the task of supplying it. For the first time in a month his face cleared of its discontent. The old, winning

boyishness returned. Maymaygw�n, standing forgotten, in the entrance, watched in silence. Dick coaxed

knowingly, leading, by the very force of persuasion, until the dog finally permitted a single pat of his sharp

nose. The young man smoothly and cautiously persisted, his face alight with interest. Finally he conquered.

The animal allowed his ears to be rubbed, his nose to be batted. At length, well content, he lay down by his

new master within reach of the band that rested caressingly on his head. The Indian girl stole softly away. At

the fireside she seated herself and gazed in the coals. Presently the marvel of two tears welled in her eyes.

Whether it was that the prospect of getting about, or the diversion of the dog was responsible for the change,

Dick's cheerfulness markedly increased in the next few days. For hours he would fool with the animal, whom

lie had named Billy, after a hunting companion, teaching him to shake hands, to speak, to wrinkle his nose in

a doggy grin, to lie down at command, and all the other tricks useful and ornamental that go to make up the

fanciest kind of a dog education. The mistakes and successes of his new friend seemed to amuse him hugely.

Often from the tent burst the sounds of inextinguishable mirth. Maymaygw�n. peeping, saw the young

man as she had first seen him, cleareyed, laughing, the wrinkles of humour deepening about his eyes, his

white teeth flashing, his brow untroubled. Three days she hovered thus on the outer edge of the renewed good

Unobtrusive, she slipped inside the teepee's flap. The dog sat on his haunches, his head to one side in

"It will be well to name the dog that he may answer to his name," she ventured again.

Dick, abruptly gripped by the incomprehensible obsession, uneasy as at something of which he only waited

the passing, resentful hocus of the discomfort this caused him, unable to break through the artificial restraint

that enveloped his spirit, lifted his eyes suddenly, dead and lifeless, to hers.

The girl made no more advances. She moved almost automatically about her accustomed tasks, preparing the

Promptly on the seventh day, with much preparation and precaution, Dick moved. He had now to suffer the

girl's assistance. When he first stood upright, he was at once attacked by a severe dizziness, which would

have caused a fall had not May maygw�n steadied him. With difficulty he hobbled to a seat outside. Even

his arms seemed to him pithless. He sank to his place hardbreathed, exhausted. It was some minutes before

The first object to catch his eye was the cardinal red of a moosemaple, like a spot of blood on velvetgreen.

And thus he knew that September, or the Manycaribouinthewoods Moon, was close at hand.

"Bring me wood of mashkigiw�teg, wood of tamarack," he commanded; "bring me m�kamon, the knife, and

"These things are ready, at hand," she replied. With the couteau croche, the crooked knife of the North, Dick

laboured slowly, fashioning with care the long tamarack strips. He was exceedingly particular as to the

selection of the wood, as to the taper of the pieces. At last one was finished to his satisfaction. Slowly then he

fashioned it, moulding the green wood, steaming it to make it more plastic, until at last the ends lay side by

side, and the loop of wood bowed above in the shape of a snowshoe raquette. The exact shape Dick still

further assured by means of two crosspieces. These were bound in place by the strips of the caribouskin

rawhide wet in warm water, which was also used to bind together the two ends. The whole was then laid

Thus in the next few days Dick fashioned the frame of six snowshoes. He adhered closely to the Ojibway

pattern. In these woods it was not necessary to have recourse to the round, broad shape of the rough

bowlderhills, nor was it possible to use the long, swift shoe of the open plains. After a while he heated red

the steel end of his rifle cleaningrod and bored holes for the webbing. This also he made of caribou rawhide,

for caribou shrinks when wet, thus tightening the lacing where other materials would stretch. Above and hello

the crosspieces he put in a very fine weaving; between them a coarser, that the loose snow might readily sift

Nor must it be imagined that he did these things alone. Maymaygw�n helped him, not only by fetching for

him the tools and materials, of which he stood in need, but also in the heeding, binding, and webbing itself.

Under the soft light of the trees, bathed in the aroma of fresh shavings and the hundred natural odours of the

forest, it was exceedingly pleasant accurately to accomplish the light skilled labour. But between these human

beings, alone in a vast wilderness, was no communication outside the necessities of the moment. Thus in a

little the three pairs of snowshoes, complete even to the buckskin footloops, hung from the sheltered

I "Bring now to me," said the young man, "poles of the hickory, logs of gijik, the cedar; bring me wigwass,

Then ensued days of severe toil. Dick was, of course, unable to handle the axe, so the girl had to do it under

his direction. The affair was of wedges with which to split along the grain; of repeated at tempts until the

resulting strips were true and without warp; of steaming and tying to the proper curve, and, finally, of binding

together strongly with the tough babiche into the shape of the dogsledge. This, too, was suspended at last

"Bring me now," said Dick, "rawhide of mooswa, the moose, rawhide of aht�k, the caribou, w�tab, the root

Seated opposite each other, heads bent over the task, they made the dogharness, strong, serviceable, not to

be worn out, with the collar, the broad buckskin strap over the back, the heavy traces. Four of them they

made, for Sam would undoubtedly complete the team, and these, too, they hung out of reach in the

Now Sam returned from his longest trip, empty of information, but light of spirit, for he had succeeded by his

simple shrewdness in avoiding all suspicion. He brought with him another "husky" dog, and a strong animal

like a Newfoundland; also some tea and tobacco, and an axeblade. This latter would be especially valuable.

In the extreme cold steel becomes like glass. The work done earned his approval, but he paused only a day,

From the inside of the teepee hung many skins of the northern hare which Maymaygw�n had captured and

tanned while Dick was still on his back. The woven blanket was finished. Now she lined the woollen blankets

with these hareskins, over an hundred to each. Nothing warmer could be imagined. Of caribou skin, tanned

with the hair on, she and Dick fashioned jackets with peaked hoods, which, when not in use, would hang

down behind. The opening about the face was sewn with bushy fox's tails, and a puckeringstring threaded

through so that the wearer could completely protect his features. Mittens they made from pelts of the muskrat.

Moccasins were cut extra large and high, and lined with fur of the hare. Heavy rawhide dogwhips and

But still there remained the question of sustenance. Game would be scarce and uncertain in the cold months.

It was now seven weeks since Dick's accident. Cautiously, with many pauses, he began to rest weight on the

injured foot. Thanks to the treatment of massage and manipulation, the joint was but little stiffened. Each day

it gained in strength. Shortly Dick was able to hobble some little distance, always with the aid of a staff,

always heedfully. As yet he was far from the enjoyment of full freedom of movement, but by expenditure of

time and perseverance he was able to hunt in a slow, patient manner. The runways where the caribou came to

drink late in the evening, a cautious float downstream as far as the first rapids, or even a plain sitting on a log

in the hope that game would chance to feed within rangethese methods persisted in day after day brought in

Of the meat they made some jerky for present consumption by the dogs, and, of course, they ate fresh as

much as they needed. But most went into pemmican. The fat was all cut away, the lean sliced thin and dried

in the sun. The result they pounded fine, and mixed with melted fat and the marrow, which, in turn, was

compressed while warm into airtight little bags. A quantity of meat went into surprisingly little pemmican.

The bags were piled on a longlegged scaffolding out of the reach of the dogs and wild animals.

The new husky and Billy had promptly come to teeth, but Billy had held his own, much to Dick Herron's

satisfaction. The larger animal was a bitch, so now all dwelt together in amity. During the still hunt they were

kept tied in camp, but the rest of the time they prowled about. Never, however, were they permitted to leave

the clearing, for that would frighten the game. At evening they sat in an expectant row, awaiting the orderly

distribution of their evening meal. Somehow they added much to the manfeel of the camp. With their

coming the atmosphere of men as opposed to the atmosphere of the wilderness had strengthened. On this side

was the human habitation, busy at its own affairs, creating about itself a definite something in the forest,

unknown before, preparing quietly and efficiently its weapons of offence and defence, all complete in its fires

and shelters and industries and domestic animals. On the other, formidable, mysterious, vast, were slowly

crystallising, without disturbance, without display, the mighty opposing forces. In the clarified air of the first

autumn frosts this antagonism seemed fairly to saturate the stately moving days. It was as yet only potential,

but the potentialities were swelling, ever swelling toward the break of an actual conflict.

Now the leaves ripened and fell, and the frost crisped them. Suddenly the forest was still. The great, brooding

silence, composed of a thousand lesser woods voices, flowed away like a vapour to he succeeded by a fragile,

deathly suspension of sound. Dead leaves depended motionless from the trees. The air hung inert. A soft

In the silence had hen a vast, holy mystery of greater purpose and life; in the stillness was a menace. It

And always across it were rising strange rustlings that might mean great things or little, but whose

significance was always in doubt. Suddenly the man watching by the runway would hear a mighty scurrying

of dead leaves, a scampering, a tumult of hurrying noises, the abruptness of whose inception tightened his

nerves and set galloping his heart. Then, with equal abruptness, they ceased. The delicate and fragile stillness

In all the forest thus diverse affairs seemed to be carried onfearfully, in sudden, noisy dashes, as a man

under fire would dodge from one cover to another. Every creature advertised in the leaves his presence.

Danger lurked to this, its advantage. Even the man, taking his necessary footsteps, was abashed at the

disproportionate and unusual effects of his movements. It was as though a retiring nature were to be

accompanied at every step through a crowded drawingroom by the jingling of hells. Always the instinct was

to pause in order that the row might die away, that the man might shrink to his accustomed unobtrusiveness.

And instantaneously, without the grace of even a little transitional echo, the stillness fell, crowding so closely

on the heels of the man's presence that almost he could feel the breath of whatever it represented.

Occasionally two red squirrels would descend from the sprucetrees to chase each other madly. Then, indeed,

did the spirit of autumn seem to be outraged. The racket came to be an insult. Always the ear expected its

discontinuance, until finally the persistence ground on the nerves like the barking of a dog at night. At last it

was an indecency, an orgy of unholy revel, a profanation, a provocative to anger of the inscrutable woods

Always the forest seemed to be the same; and yet somehow in a manner not to be defined a subtle change was

taking place in the wilderness. Nothing definite could be instanced. Each morning of that Indian summer the

skies were as soft, the sun as grateful, the leaves as gorgeous in their blazonment, yet each morning an

infinitesimal something that had hen there the day before was lacking, and for it an infinitesimal something

had hen substituted. The change from hour to hour was not perceptible; from week to week it was. The

stillness grew in portent; the forest creatures moved more furtively. Like growth, rather than chemical

change, the wilderness was turning to iron. With this hardening it became more formidable and menacing. No

longer aloof in nirvanic: calm, awakened it drew near its enemies, alert, cunning, circumspect, ready. to

Each morning a thin film of ice was to be seen along the edges of the slack water. Heavy, black frosts

whitened the shadows and nipped the unaccustomed fingers early in the day. The sun was swinging to the

These last the man and the girl caught in great numbers, and smoked and piled on longlegged scaffolds.

They were intended as winter food for the dogs, and would constitute a great part of what would be taken

Dick began to walk without his crutches, a very little at a time, grimly, all his old objectless anger returned

when the extent of his disability was thus brought home to him. But always with persistence came

improvement. Each attempt brought its reward in strengthened muscles, freer joints, greater confidence. At

last it could be no longer doubted that by the Indian's Whitefish Moon he would be as good as ever. The

discovery, by some queer contrariness of the man's disposition, was avoided as long as possible, and finally

but grudgingly admitted. Yet when at last Dick confessed to him self that his complete recovery was come,

his mood suddenly changed. The old necessity for blind, unreasoning patience seemed at an end. He could

perceive light ahead, and so in the absence of any further need for taut spiritual nerves, he relaxed the strain

and strode on more easily. He played more with the dogs of which still his favourite was Billy;

occasionally he burst into little snatches of song, and the sound of his whistling was merry in the air. At

length he paused abruptly in his work to fix his quizzical, narrow gaze on the Indian girl.

She looked up at him, a warm glow leaping to her face. This was the first time he had addressed her by the

customary diminutive of friendship since they had both hen members of the Indian camp on the Missin�ibie.

They lifted the net together, and halffilled the canoe with the shining fish. Dick bore himself with the

careless good humour of his earlier manner. The greater part of the time he seemed unconscious of his

companion's presence, but genuinely unconscious, not with the deliberate affront of a pretended indifference.

Under even this negative good treatment the girl expanded with an almost luxuriant gratitude. Her face lost

its stoical mask of imperturbability, and much of her former arch beauty returned. The young man was blind

to these things, for he was in reality profoundly indifferent to the girl, and his abrupt change of manner could

in no way he ascribed to any change in his feeling for her. It was merely the reflex of his inner mood, and that

sprang solely from joy over the permission he had given himself again to contemplate taking the Long Trail.

But Sam Bolton, returning that very day from his own long journey, saw at once the alteration in

Maymaygw�n, and was troubled over it. He came into camp by the river way where the moss and

spruceneedles silenced his footsteps, so he approached unnoticed. The girl bent over the fire. A strong glow

from the flames showed the stronger glow illuminating her face from within. She hummed softly a song of

Mongo doogwin Nin dinaindoon " Loon's wing I thought it was In the distance shining. But it was my

At the same moment Dick caught sight of the newcomer and hobbled out of the wigwam.

"Hello, you old snoozer!" he shouted. "We began to think you weren't going to show up at all. Look at what

we've done. I believe you've hen lying out in the woods just to dodge work. Where'd you steal that dog?"

"Hello, Dick," replied Sam, unslinging his pack. "I'm tired. Tell her to rustle grub."

He leaned back against a cedar, halfclosing his eyes, but nevertheless keenly alert. The changed atmosphere

of the camp disturbed him. Although he had not realised it before, he preferred Dick's old uncompromising

In accordance with the woods custom, little was said until after the meal was finished and the pipes lit. Then

Sam replied briefly as to his journey, making it clear that he had now covered all the hunting districts of this

region with the single exception of one beyond the Ken�gami. He had discovered nothing; he was absolutely

"I didn't go entirely by what the Injuns told me," he said, "but I looked at the signs along the trapping routes

and the trapping camps to see bow many had hen at it, and I'm sure the number tallies with the regular Injun

The animal slouched forward, his head hanging, the rims of his eyes blood red as he turned them up to his

master. He was a powerful heist, black and tan, with a quaintly wrinkled, anxious countenance and long,

"Strong," commented Dick, "but queerlooking. He'll have trouble keeping warm with that short coat."

The dog slouched slowly back, his heavy head and ears swinging to each step, to where Maymaygw�n was

"Now for that Ken�gami country," went on Sam; "it's two weeks from here by dogs, and it's our last chance

in this country. I ain't dared ask too many questions, of course, so I don't know anything about the men

who're hunting there. There's four families, and one other. He's alone; I got that much out of the last place I

stopped. We got to wait here for snow. If we don't raise anything there, we'd better get over toward the

The older man began to ask minutely concerning the equipment, provisions, and dog food.

"It's all right as long as we can take it easy and bunt," advised Sam, gradually approaching the subject that

was really troubling him, "and it's all right if we can surprise this Jingoss or ambush him when we find him.

But suppose he catches wind of us and skips, what then? It'll he a mighty pretty race, my son, and a hard one.

We'll have to fly light and hard, and we'll need every pound of grub we can scrape."

The young man's eyes darkened and his nostrils expanded with the excitement of this thought.

"That's all right," agreed the woodsman, his eyes narrowing; "but how about the girl, then?"

"Well, what about the girl? That's what I've hen telling you. Strikes me that's one of your troubles."

Halfsatisfied, the veteran fell silent. Shortly after he made an opportunity to speak to Maymaygw�n.

"All is well," she replied; "we have finished the parkas, the sledges, the snowshoes, the blankets, and we

"His foot is nearly healed. Yesterday he walked to the Big Pool and back. Today, even this afternoon, Little

Convinced that the restored good feeling was the result rather of Dick's volatile nature than of too good an

"Little Sister,," he went on, "soon we are going to take the winter trail. It may be that we will have to travel

rapidly. It may be that food will be scarce. I think it best that you do not go with us."

"These words I have expected," she replied. "I have heard the speech you have Made with the Ojibway men

you have met. I have seen the preparations you have made. I am not deceived. You and Jibiw�nisi are not

looking for winter posts. I do not know what it is you are after, but it is something you wish to conceal. Since

you have not told me, I know you wish to conceal it from me. I did not know all this when I left Haukemah

and his people. That was a foolish thing. It was done, and I do not know why. But it was done, and it cannot

be undone. I could not go back to the people of Haukemah now; they would kill me. Where else can I go? I

"You come from Conjuror's House. You tell the Indians you come from Winnipeg, but that is not so. When

you have finished your affairs, you will return to Conjuror's House. There I can enter the household of some

"As when one pursues an enemy," said the girl, calmly. "Good. I am fleet. I too can travel. And if it comes to

that, I will leave you without complaint when I can no longer tread your trail."

"Consider, Little Father," said Maymaygw�n; "of the food I have prepared much; of the work, I have done

much. I have tended the traps, raised the nets, fashioned many things, attended Eagleeye. If I had not hen

here, then you, Little Father, could not have made your journeys. So you have gained some time."

"Listen, Little Father, take me with you. I will drive the dogs, make the camp, cook the food. Never will I

complain. If the food gets scarce, I will not ask for my share. That I promise."

"Much of what you say is true," assented the woodsman, "but you forget you came to us of your free will and

"If you hope to become the squaw of Jibiw�nisi ," said Sam, bluntly, "you may as well give it up."

The girl said nothing, but compressed her lips to a straight line. After a moment she merely reiterated her

Dick, however, could see no good in such an arrangement. He did not care to discuss the matter at length, but

preserved rather the attitude of a man who has shaken himself free of all the responsibility of an affair, and is,

"You'll have a lot of trouble dragging a squaw all over the north," he advised Sam, critically. "Of course, we

can't turn her adrift here. Wouldn't do that to a dog. But it strikes me it would even pay us to go out of our

"Oh, bring her along if you want to," laughed Dick, "only it's your funeral. You'll 'get into trouble, sure. And

It might have hen imagined by the respective attitudes of the two men that actually Sam had hen responsible

for the affair from the beginning. Finally, laboriously, he decided that the girl should go. She could be of

assistance; there was small likelihood of the necessity for protracted hasty travel.

The weather was getting steadily colder. Greasylooking clouds drove down from the northwest. Heavy

winds swept by. The days turned gray. Under the shelter of trees the ground froze into hummocks, which did

not thaw out. The crisp leaves which had made the forest so noisy disintegrated into sodden silence. A

wildness was in the air, swooping down with the breeze, buffeting in the little whirlwinds and eddies, rocking

back and forth in the tops of the stormbeaten trees. Cold little waves lapped against the thin fringe of shore

ice that crept day by day from the banks. The water itself turned black. Strange birds swirling down wind like

The inmates of the little camp waited. Each morning Dick was early afoot searching the signs of the weather;

examining the ice that crept stealthily from shore, waiting to pounce upon and imprison the stream;

speculating on the chances of an early season. The frost pinched his bare fingers severely, but he did not mind

that. His leg was by now almost as strong as ever, and he was impatient to be away, to leave behind him this

rapid that had gained over him even a temporary victory. Always as the time approached, his spirits rose. It

would have hen difficult to identify this laughing boy with the sullen and terrible man who had sulked

through the summer. He had made friends with all the dogs. Even the fierce "huskies" had become tame, and

liked to be upset and tousled about and dragged on their backs growling fierce but mock protest. The bitch he

had named Claire; the hound with the long ears he had called Mack, hocus of a fancied and mournful likeness

to MacDonald, the Chief Trader; the other "husky" he had christened Wolf, for obvious reasons; and there

remained, of course, the original Billy. Dick took charge of the feeding. At first he needed his short, heavy

whip to preserve order, but shortly his really admirable gift with animals gained way, and he had them

At last the skim ice made it impossible longer to use the canoe in fishing on the river. The craft was,

therefore, suspended bottom up between two trees. A little snow fell and remained, but was speedily swept

into hollows. The temperature lowered. It became necessary to assume thicker garments. Once having

bridged the river the ice strengthened rapidly. And then late one afternoon, on the wings of the northwest

wind, came the snow. All night it howled past the trembling wigwam. All the next day it swirled and drifted

and took the shapes of fantastic monsters leaping in the riot of the storm. Then the stars, cold and brilliant,

once more crackled in the heavens. The wilderness in a single twentyfour hours had changed utterly. Winter

In the starlit, bitter cold of a north country morning the three packed their sledge and harnessed their dogs.

The rawhide was stubborn with the frost, the dogs uneasy. Knots would not tie. Pain nipped the fingers, cruel

pain that ate in and in until it had exposed to the shock of little contacts every tightened nerve. Each stiff,

clumsy movement was agony. From time to time one of the three thrust hand in mitten to heat the freezing

back. Then a new red torture surged to the very fingertips. They bore it in silence, working hastily, knowing

that every morning of the long, winter trip this fearful hour must come. Thus each day the North would greet

them, squeezing their fingers in the cruel bandclasp of an antagonist testing their strength.

Over the supplies and blankets was drawn the skin envelope laced to the sledge. The last reluctant knot was

tied. Billy, the leader of the four dogs, casting an intelligent eye at his masters, knew that all was ready, and

so arose from his haunches. Dick twisted his feet skilfully into the loops of his snowshoes. Sam, already

equipped, seized the heavy dogwhip. The girl took charge of the geepole with which the sledge would he

The four dogs leaned into their collars. The sledge creaked free of its frost anchorage and moved.

First it became necessary to drop from the elevation to the riverbed. Dick and Maymaygw�n clung

desperately. Sam exercised his utmost skill and agility to keep the dogs straight. The toboggan hovered an

instant over the edge of the bank, then plunged, coasting down. Men bung back, dogs ran to keep ahead. A

smother of light snow settled to show, in the dim starlight, the furrow of descent. And on the broad, white

surface of the river were eight spot of black which represented the followers of the Long Trail.

Dick ran on steadily in the soft snow, swinging his entire weight now on one foot, now on the other, passing

the snowshoes with the peculiar stiff swing of the ankle, throwing his heel strongly downward at each step

in order to take advantage of the long snowshoe tails' elasticity. At each step he sank deep into the feathery

snow. The runner was forced to lift the toe of the shoe sharply, and the snow swirled past his ankles like

foam. Behind him, in the trail thus broken and packed for them, trotted the dogs, their noses low, their jaws

hanging. Sam drove with two longlashed whips; and Maymaygw�n, clinging to the geepole, guided the

In the absolute and dead stillness of a winter morning before the dawn the little train went like ghosts in a

mist of starlight. The strange glimmering that seems at such an hour to disengage from the snow itself served

merely to establish the separate bulks of that which moved across it. The heeding figure of the man breaking

trail, his head low, his body moving in its swing with the regularity of a pendulum; the four wolflike dogs,

also heeding easily to what was not a great labour, the line of their open jaws and lolling tongues cut out

against the snow; another human figure; the low, dark mass of the sledge; and again the heeding figure at the

rear, all these contrasted in their halfblurred uncertainty of outline and the suggested motion of their

attitude with the straight, clear silhouette of the sprucetrees against the sky.

Also the sounds of their travelling offered an analogous contrast. The dull crunch, crunch, crunch of the

snowshoes, the breathing of the living beings, the glither and creak of the sledge came to the ear blurred and

Ten minutes of the really violent exertion of breaking trail warmed Dick through. His fingers ceased their

protest. Each breath, blowing to steam, turned almost immediately to frost. He threw back the hood of his

capote, for he knew that should it become wet from the moisture of his breath, it would freeze his skin, and

with his violent exertions exposure to the air was nothing. In a short time his eyebrows and eyelashes became

heavy with ice. Then slowly the moisture of his body, working outward through the wool of his clothing,

frosted on the surface, so that gradually as time went on he grew to look more and more like a' great

The driving here on the open river was comparatively easy. Except occasionally, the straight line could he

adhered to. When it became necessary to avoid an obstruction, Sam gave the command loudly, addressing

And Billy would turn to the left, with always in mind the thought of the long whip to recall his duty to man.

Then the other dogs turned after him. Claire, for her steadiness and sense, had hen made sledgedog. Always

she watched sagaciously to pull the end of the sledge strongly away should the deviation not prove sufficient.

Later, in the woods, when the trail should become difficult, much would depend on Claire's good sense.

Now shortly, far to the south, the sun rose. The gray world at once became brilliant. The low frost haze,

invisible until now, to he invisible all the rest of the day, for these few moments of the level beams

worked strange necromancies. The prisms of a million icedrops on shrubs and trees took fire. A bewildering

flash and gleam of jewels caught the eye in every direction. And, suspended in the air, like the shimmer of a

soft and delicate veiling, wavered and floated a mist of vapour, tinted with rose and lilac, with amethyst and

As always on the Long Trail, our travellers' spirits rose with the sun. Dick lengthened his stride, the dogs

leaned to their collars, Sam threw back his shoulders, the girl swung the sledge tail with added vim. Now

everything was warm and bright and beautiful. It was yet too early in the day for fatigue, and the first

But in a few moments Dick stopped. The sledge at once came to a halt. They rested.

At the end of ten minutes Sam stepped to the front, and Dick took the dogwhip. The young man's muscles,

still weak from their long inaction, ached cruelly. Especially was this true of the ligaments at the groinused

in lifting high the knee,and the long muscles along the front of the shinbone, by which the toe of the

snowshoe was elevated. He found himself very glad to drop behind into the beaten trail.

The sun by now had climbed well above the horizon, but did little to mitigate the cold. As long as the violent

movement was maintained a warm and grateful glow followed the circulation, but a pause, even of a few

moments, brought the shivers. And always the feathery, clogging snow, offering slight resistance, it is true,

but opposing that slight resistance continuously, so that at last it amounted to a great deal. A step taken meant

no advance toward easier steps. . The treadmill of forest travel, changed only in outward form, again claimed

At noon they paused in the shelter of the woods. The dogs were anchored by the simple expedient of turning

the sledge on its side. A little fire of dried spruce and pine branches speedily melted snow in the kettle, and

that as speedily boiled tea. Caribou steak, thawed, then cooked over the blaze, completed the meal. As soon

The inspiration and uplift of the morning were gone; the sun was sinking to a colder and colder setting. All

the vital forces of the world were running down. A lethargy seized our travellers. An effort was required

merely to contemplate treading the mill during the three remaining hours of daylight, a greater effort to

accomplish the first step of it, and an infinite series of everincreasing efforts to make the successive steps of

that long afternoon. The mind became weary. And now the North increased by ever so little the pressure

against them, sharpening the cold by a trifle; adding a few flakes' weight to the snow they must lift on their

shoes; throwing into the vista before them a deeper, chillier tone of gray discouragement; intensifying the

loneliness; giving to the winds of desolation a voice. Well the great antagonist knew she could not thus stop

these men, but so, little by little, she ground them down, wore away the excess of their vitality, reduced them

to grim plodding, so that at the moment she would hold them weakened to her purposes. They made no sign,

for they were of the great men of the earth, but they bent to the familiar touch of many, little fingers pushing

Now the sun did indeed swing to the horizon, so that there remained scant daylight.

Slowly, wearily, the little party turned aside. In the grove of spruce the snow clung thick and heavy. A cold

blackness enveloped them like a damp blanket. Wind, dying with the sun, shook the snow from the trees and

cried mournfully in their tops. Gray settled on the landscape, palpable, real, extinguishing the world. It was

the second dreadful hour of the day, the hour when the man, weary, discouraged, the sweat of travel freezing

on him, must still address himself to the task of making a home in the wilderness.

Again the sledge was turned on its side. Dick and Maymaygw�n removed their snowshoes, and, using

them as shovels, began vigorously to scrape and dig away the snow. Sam unstrained the axe and went for

firewood. He cut it with little tentative strokes, for in the intense cold the steel was almost as brittle as glass.

Now a square of ground flanked by high snow walls was laid bare. The two then stripped boughs of balsam

with which to carpet all one end of it. They unharnessed the dogs, and laid the sledge across one end of the

clear space, covering it with branches in order to keep the dogs from gnawing the mooseskin wrapper. It

But at this point Sam returned with fuel. At once the three set about laying a fire nearly across the end of the

cleared space opposite the sledge. In a moment a tiny flame cast the first wavering shadows against the

Shortly the camp was completed. Heifer the fire, impaled on sticks, bung the frozen whitefish thawing out for

the dogs. Each animal was to receive two. The kettle boiled. Meat sizzled over the coals. A piece of ice,

whittled to a point, dripped drinkingwater like a faucet. The snowbank ramparts were pink in the glow.

They reflected appreciably the heat of the fire, though they were not in the least affected by it, and remained

flaky to the touch. A comfortable sizzling and frying and bubbling and snapping filled the little dome of

firelight, beyond which was the wilderness. Weary with an immense fatigue the three layback waiting for

their supper to be done. The dogs, too, waited patiently just at the edge of the heat, their bushy tails covering

the bottoms of their feet and their noses, as nature intended. Only Mack, the bound, lacking this protection,

but hardened to greater exposure, lay flat on his side, his paws extended to the blaze. They all rested quietly,

worn out, apparently without the energy to move a single hair. But now Dick, rising, took down from its

switch the first of the whitefish. Instantly every dog was on his feet. Their eyes glared yellow, their jaws

slavered, they leaped toward the man who held the fish high above his head and kicked energetically at the

struggling animals. Sam took the dog whip to help. Between them the food was distributed, two fish to a dog.

The beasts took each his share to a place remote from the others and bolted it hastily, returning at once on the

chance of a further distribution, or the opportunity to steal from his companions. After a little more roaming

about, growling and suspicious sniffing, they again settled down one by one to slumber.

Almost immediately after supper the three turned in first removing and hanging before the fire the duffel and

moccasins worn during the day. These were replaced by larger and warmer sleep moccasins lined with fur.

The warmlined coverings they pulled up over and around them completely, to envelop even their heads.

This arrangement is comfortable only after long use has accustomed one to the halfsuffocation; but it is

necessary, not only to preserve the warmth of the body, but also to protect the countenance from freezing. At

As though they had awaited a signal, the dogs arose and proceeded to investigate the camp. Nothing was too

trivial to escape their attention. Billy found a tiny bit of cooked meat. Promptly he was called on to protect

his discovery against a vigorous onslaught from the hound and the other husky. Over and over the fighting

dogs rolled, snorting and biting, awakening the echoes of the forest, even trampling the sleepers, who,

nevertheless, did not stir. In the mean time, Claire, uninvolved, devoured the morsel. The trouble gradually

died down. One after another the animals dug themselves holes in the snow, where they curled up, their

bushy tails over their noses and their fore paws. Only Mack, the hound with the wrinkled face and long,

pendent ears, unendowed with such protection, crept craftily between his sleeping masters.

Gradually the fire died to coals, then filmed to ashes. Hand in hand the cold and the darkness invaded the

camp. As the firelight faded, objects showed dimly, growing ever more distinct through the dying glowthe

snowladen bushes, the pointed trees against a steel sky of stars. The little,, artificial tumult of homely sound

by which these men had created for the moment an illusion of life sank down under the unceasing pressure of

the verities, so that the wilderness again flowed unobstructed through the forest aisles. With a last pop of

coals the faint noise of the fire ceased. Then an even fainter noise slowly became audible, a crackling

undertone as of silken banners rustling. And at once, splendid, barbaric, the mighty orgy of the wintertime

In a day or two Dick was attacked by the fearful mat de raquette, which tortures into knots the muscles of the

leg below the knee; and by cramps that doubled him up in his blankets. This was the direct result of his

previous inaction. He moved only with pain; and yet, by the stern northcountry code, he made no complaint

and moved as rapidly as possible. Each time he raised his knee a sharp pain stabbed his groin, as though he

had hen stuck by a penknife; each time he bent his ankle in the recover the mat de raquette twisted his calves,

and stretched his ankle tendons until he felt that his very feet were insecurely attached and would drop off.

During the evening he sat quiet, but after he had fallen asleep from the mere exhaustion of the day's toil, he

doubled up, straightened out, groaned aloud, and spoke rapidly in the strained voice of one who suffers. Often

he would strip his legs by the fire, in order that Sam could twist a cleft stick vigorously about the affected

muscles; which is the Indian treatment. As for the cramps, they took care of themselves. The day's journey

was necessarily shortened until he had partly recovered, but even after the worst was over, a long tramp

For the space of nearly ten weeks these people travelled thus in the region of the Kabinik�gam . Sometimes

they made long marches; sometimes they camped for the hunting; sometimes the great, fierce storms of the

north drove them to shelter, snowed them under, and passed on shrieking. The wind opposed them. At first of

little account, its very insistence gave it value. Always the stinging snow whirling into the face; always the

eyes watering and smarting; always the unyielding opposition against which to bend the head; always the

rush of sound in the ears, a distraction against which the senses had to struggle before they could take

their needed cognizance of trail and of game. An uneasiness was abroad with the wind, an uneasiness that

infected the men, the dogs, the forest creatures, the very insentient trees themselves. It racked the nerves In it

the inimical Spirit of the North seemed to find its plainest symbol; though many difficulties she cast in the

Ever the days grew shorter. The sun swung above the horizon, low to the south, and dipped back as though

pulled by some invisible string. Slanting through the trees it gave little cheer and no warmth. Early in the

afternoon it sank, silhouetting the pointed firs, casting across the snow long, crimson shadows, which faded

into gray. It was replaced by a moon, chill and remote, dead as the white world on which it looked.

In the great frost continually the trees were splitting with loud, sudden reports. The cold had long since

squeezed the last drops of moisture from the atmosphere. It was metallic, clear, bard as ice, brilliant as the

stars, compressed with the freezing. The moon, the stars, the earth, the very heavens glistened like polished

steel. Frost lay on the land thick as a coverlid. It hid the east like clouds of smoke. Snow remained unmelted

And the fire alone saved these people from the enemy. If Sam stooped for a moment to adjust his snowshoe

strap, he straightened his back with a certain reluctance, already the benumbing preliminary to freezing

had begun. If Dick, flipping his mitten from his hand to light his pipe, did not catch the fire at the second tug,

he had to resume the mitten and heat the circulation into his hand before renewing the attempt, lest the ends

of his fingers become frosted. Movement, always and incessantly, movement alone could keep going the vital

forces on these few coldest days until the fire had hen built to fight back the white death.

It was the land of ghosts. Except for the few hours at midday these people moved in the gloom and shadow of

a nether world. The long twilight was succeeded by longer night, with its burnished stars, its dead moon, its

unearthly aurora. On the fresh snow were the tracks of creatures, but in the flesh they glided Almost invisible.

The ptarmigan's head eye alone betrayed him, he had no outline. The ermine's black tip was the only

indication of his presence. Even the larger animals,the caribou, the moosehad either turned a dull gray, or

were so rimed by the frost as to have lost all appearance of solidity. It was ever a surprise to find these

phantoms bleeding red, to discover that their flesh would resist the knife. During the strife of the heavy

northwest storms one side of each tree had become more or less plastered with snow, so that even their dark

trunks flashed mysteriously into and out of view. In the entire world of the great white silence the only solid,

enduring, palpable reality was the tiny sledge train crawling with infinite patience across its vastness.

White space, a feeling of littleness and impotence, twilight gloom, burnished night, bitter cold, unreality,

phantasmagoria, ghosts like those which urged about AElig;neas, and finally clogging, white silence,

these were the simple but dreadful elements of that journey which lasted, without event, from the middle of

Never in all that time was an hour of real comfort to he anticipated. The labours of the day were succeeded by

the shiverings of the night. Exhaustion alone induced sleep; and the racking chill of early morning alone

broke it. The invariable diet was meat, tea, and pemmican. Besides the resolution required for the day's

journey and the night's discomfort, was the mental anxiety as to whether or not game would he found.

Discouragements were many. Sometimes with full anticipation of a good day's run, they would consume

hours in painfully dragging the sledge over unexpected obstructions. At such times Wolf, always of an evil

disposition, made trouble. Thus besides the resolution of spirit necessary to the work, there had to be pumped

up a surplusage to meet the demands of difficult dogdriving. And when, as often happened, a band of the

gray wolves would flank them within smelling distance, the exasperation of it became almost unbearable.

Time and again Sam had almost forcibly to restrain Dick from using the butt of his whip on Wolf's head.

Nor could they treat themselves in the weary succession of days to an occasional visit with human beings.

During the course of their journey they investigated in turn three of the four trapping districts of the

Kabinik�gam. But Sam's judgment advised that they should not show themselves to the trappers. He argued

that no sane man would look for winter posts at this time of year, and it might be difficult otherwise to

explain the presence of white men. It was quite easy to read by the signs bow many people were to be

accounted for in each district, and then it was equally easy to ambush in a tree, during the rounds for

examination of the traps, until their identities had all hen established. It was necessary to climb a tree in order

to escape discovery by the trapper's dog. Of course the trail of our travellers would be found by the trapper,

but unless he actually saw them he would most probably conclude them to be Indians moving to the west.

Accordingly Dick made long detours to, intercept the trappers, and spent many cold hours waiting for them to

pass, while Sam and the girl hunted in another direction to replenish the supplies. In this manner the

frequenters of these districts had hen struck from the list. No one of them was Jingoss. There remained but

one section, and that the most northerly. If that failed, then there was nothing to do but to retrace the long,

weary journey up the Kabinik�gam , past the rapids where Dick had hurt himself, over the portage, down the

Mattawishgina, across the Missina�bie , on which they had started their travels, to the country of the

"We'd be right back where we started. I think it would pay us to go down to Brunswick House and get a new

outfit. It's only about a week up the Missin�ibie ." Then, led by inevitable association of ideas, "Wonder if

those Crees had a good, time? And I wonder if they've knocked our friend Ahtek, the Chippewa, on the head

"That's all right," insisted the older man; "just the same, an Injun never forgets and never fails to get even.

You may think he's forgotten, but he's layin' for you just the same," and then, hocus they happened to be

resting in the lea of a bank and the sun was at its highest for the day, Sam went on to detail one example after

another from his wide observation of the tenacity with which an Indian pursues an obligation, whether of

gratitude or enmity. "They'll travel a thousand miles to get even," he concluded. "They'll drop the most

important business they got, if they think they have a good chance to make a killing. He'll run up against you

"All right," agreed Dick, "I'll take care of him. Perhaps I'd better get organised; he may he laying for me

"I don't know what made us talk about it," said Sam, "but funnier things have happened to me."

But Sam had suddenly become grave. "I believe in those things," he said, a little fearfully. "They save a man

sometimes, and sometimes they help him to get what he wants. It's a Chippewa we're after; it's a Chippewa

"I don't know," confessed Sam, "but I have a kind of a bunch we won't have to go back to the Nipissing." He

The little cavalcade had made barely a dozen steps in advance when Sam, who was leading, came to a dead

Across the way lay the trunk of a fallen tree. It had hen entirely covered with snow, whose line ran clear and

unbroken its entire length except at one point, where it dipped to a shallow notch.

Sam pointed to the shallow depression in the snow covering the prostrate treetrunk.

"Why, you must know as well as I do," he said, "somebody stepped on top of that log with snowshoes, and

"Sure; and let me tell you this, that trapper is the man we're after. That's his trail."'

Dick looked sceptical, then impressed. After all, you never could tell what a man might not learn out in the

"What's the use? He's the last man we have to tend to in this district, anyway. Even if it shouldn't be Jingoss,

we don't care if he sees us. We'll tell him we're travelling from York to Winnipeg. It must be pretty near on

They set themselves to following the trail. As the only persistences of it through the last storm were to be

found where the snowshoes had left deep notches on the fallen timber, this was not an easy matter. After a

time the affair was simplified by the dogs. Dick had hen breaking trail, but paused a moment to tie his shoe.

The team floundered ahead. After a moment it discovered the halfpacked snow of the old trail a foot below

the newer surface, and, finding it easier travel, held to it. Between the partial success at this, and an

occasional indication on the tops of fallen trees, the woodsmen managed to keep the direction of the

This exploded the theory that the trail had hen made by the Indian to whom the trapping rights of the district

belonged. At once the two men began to spy here and there eagerly, trying to reconstruct from the meagre

The condition of the fire corroborated what the condition of the trail had indicated. Probably the man had

passed about three days ago. The nature of the fire proclaimed him an Indian, for it was small and round,

where a white man's is long and hot. He had no dogs; therefore his journey was short, for, necessarily, he was

carrying what he needed on his back. Neither on the route nor here in camp were any indications that he had

carried or was examining traps; so the conclusion was that this trip was not merely one of the long circles a

trapper sometimes makes about the limits of his domain. What, then, was the errand of a single man,

"It's the man we're after," said Sam, with conviction. "He's either taken the alarm, or he's visiting.

They went. Beneath a lower limb, whose fan had protected it from the falling snow, was the single clear print

"Hah!" cried Sam, in delight, and fell on his knees to examine it. At the first glance he uttered another

exclamation of pleasure, for, though the shoe had hen of the Ojibway pattern, in certain modifications it

suggested a more northerly origin. The toes had hen craftily upturned, the tails shortened, the webbing more

"It's Ojibway induced Sam, over his shoulder, "but the man who made it has lived among the Crees. That fits

It was by now almost noon. They boiled tea at the old camp site, and tightened their belts for a stern chase.

That afternoon the head wind opposed them, exasperating, tireless in its resistance, never lulling for a single

instant. At the moment it seemed more than could be borne. Near one o'clock it did them a great despite, for

at that hour the trail came to a broad and wide lake. There the snow had fallen, and the wind had drifted it so

that the surface of the ice was white and smooth as paper. The faint trail led accurately to the bankand was

Nothing remained but to circle the shores to right and to left until the place of egress was discovered. This

meant long work and careful work, for the lake was of considerable size. It meant that the afternoon would

go, and perhaps the day following, while the man whose footsteps they were following would be drawing

It was agreed that Maymaygw�n should remain with the sledge, that Dick should circle to the right, and

Sam to the left, and that all three should watch each other carefully for a signal of discovery.

But now Sam happened to glance at Mack, the wrinklenosed bound. The sledge had hen pulled a short

distance out on the ice. Mack, alternately whining and sniffing, was trying to induce his comrades to turn

"Smells something; what's the difference? Let's get a move on us," replied Dick, carelessly.

Immediately the hound, his nose low, uttered a deep, helllike note and struck on the diagonal across the

Across the white waste of the lake, against the bite of the unobstructed wind, under the shelter of the bank

opposite they ran at slightly accelerated speed, then without pause into the forest on the other side.

"Look," said the older woodsman, pointing ahead to a fallen trunk. It was the trail.

"That was handy," commented Dick, and promptly forgot about it. But Sam treasured the incident for the

And then, just before two o'clock, the wind did them a great service. Down the long, straight lines of its flight

came distinctly the creak of snowshoes. Evidently the traveller, whoever he might be, was retracing his

At once Sam overturned the sledge, thus anchoring the dogs, and Dick ran ahead to conceal himself.

Instantly Sam was at work binding fast their jaws with buckskin thongs. The girl assisted him. When the task

Eight months of toil focussed in the moment. The faint creaking of the shoes came ever louder down the

wind. Once it paused. Dick caught his breath. Had the traveller discovered anything suspicious? He glanced

But almost with Sam's reply the creaking began again, and after an instant of indetermination continued its

Then suddenly the woodsmen, with a simultaneous movement, raised their rifles, and with equal unanimity

lowered them, gasping with astonishment. Dick's enemy, Ahtek, the renegade Chippewa of Haukemah's

Sam collected himself to a reply. Dick said nothing, but fell behind, with his rifle across his arm. All marched

on in silence to where lay the dogsledge, guarded by Maymaygw�n. The Chippewa's keen eyes took in

every detail of the scene, the overturning of the sledge, the muzzling of the dogs, the general nature of the

equipment. If he made any deductions, he gave no sign, nor did he evince any further astonishment at finding

these men so far north at such a time of year. Only, when he thought himself unobserved, he cast a glance of

peculiar intelligence at the girl, who, after a moment's hesitation, returned it.

The occasion was one of elaborate courtesy. Sam ordered tea boiled, and offered his tobacco. Over the fire he

Again the Chippewa denied, but after enjoying for a moment the baffling of the old man's intentions, he

Ahtek assented gravely. Evidently he cared very little whether or not his explanation was accepted.

"We have summered in the region of the Missin�ibie," proffered Sam. "Now we go to Winnipeg!,

The Indian's inscrutable countenance gave no indication as to whether or not he believed this. After a moment

he knocked the ashes from his pipe and arose, casting another sharp glance ' at May maygw�n. She had hen

busy at the sledge. Now she approached, carrying simply her own blankets and clothing.

"This man," said she to the two, "is of my people. He returns to them. I go with him."

The Chippewa twisted his feet into his snowshoes, nodded to the white men, and swung away on the back

trail in the direction whence our travellers had come. The girl, without more leavetaking, followed close at

his back. For an instant the crunch of shoes splintered the frosty air. Then they rounded a bend. Silence fell

"Well, I'll be damned!" ejaculated Dick at last. "Do you think he was really up here visiting?"

"Then he was after me," interrupted Dick again with growing excitement. "Why didn't you let me shoot him,

"Will you shut up and listen to me?" demanded the old man, impatiently. "If he'd wantedyou, he'd have got

you when you were hurt last summer; and if he'd wanted the girl, he'd have got her then, too. It's all clear to

me. He has hen visiting a friend, perhaps his brother, as he said,and he did spend less than three days in

the visit. What did he come for? Let me tell you! That friend, or brother, is Jingoss, and he came up here to

warn him that we're after him. The Chippewa suspected us a little on the Missin�ibie, but he wasn't sure.

"Hocus we fooled him, just as we fooled all the Injuns. We might be looking for winter posts, just as we said.

And then if he came up here and told Jingoss we were after him, when really we didn't know beans about

Jingoss and his steals, and then this Jingoss should skip the country and leave an almighty good fur district all

for nothing, that would be a nice healthy favour to do for a man, wouldn't it! No, he had to be sure before he

made any moves. And he didn't get to be sure until he heard somehow from some one who saw our trails that

three people were travelling in the winter up through this country. Then he piked out to warn Jingoss."

"Of course I'm right. And another thing; if that's the case we're pretty close there. How many more trappers

are there in this district? Just one! And since this Chippewa is going back on his back trail within three days

after he made it, he couldn't have gone farther than that one man. And that one man must be"

"Within a day and a half of us, anyway; probably much closer," supplemented Sam. "It's as plain as a

But Sam, afire with the inspiration of inductive reasoning, could see no objection there.

"This Chippewa knew we were in the country," he argued, "but he hadn't any idea we were so close. If he

had, he wouldn't have hen so foolish as to follow his own back track when he was going out. I don't know

what his ideas were, of course, but he was almighty surprised to see us here. He's warned this Jingoss, not

more than a day or so ago. But he didn't tell him to skedaddle at once. He said, 'Those fellows are after you,

and they're moseying around down south of here, and probably they'll get up here in the course of the winter.

You'd probably better slide out 'till they get done.' Then he stayed a day and smoked a lot, and started back.

Now, if Jingoss just thinks we're coming some time, and not tomorrow, he ain't going to pull up stakes in

such a hell of a hurry. He'll pack what furs he's got, and he'll pick up what traps he's got out. That would take

"Sam, you're a wonder," said Dick, admiringly. "I never could have thought all that out."

"If that idea's correct," went on Sam, "and the Chippewa's just come from Jingoss, why we've got the

"Well, we got rid of the girl," said Dick, casually. "Damn little fool. I didn't think she'd leave us that easy.

"Neither did I," admitted Sam; "but it's natural, Dick. We ain't her people, and we haven't treated her very

well, and I don't wonder she was sick of it and took the first chance back. We've got our work cut out for us

The dogs yawned prodigiously, stretching their jaws after the severe muzzling. Sam began reflectively to

"Guess we'd better camp here," said he. "It's getting pretty late and we're due for one hell of a tramp

Some time during the night Maymaygw�n rejoined them. Sam was awakened by the demonstration of the

dogs, at first hostile, then friendly with recognition. He leaped to his feet, startled at the apparition of a human

figure. Dick sat up alert at once. The fire had almost died, but between the glow of its embers and the light of

"Oh, for God's sake!" snarled Dick, and lay back again in his blankets, but in a moment resumed his sitting

position. "She made her choice," he proffered vehemently, "make her stick to it! Make her stick to it. She

The young man stared at his companion an enigmatical instant, hesitating as to his reply.

"Oh,, all right," he replied at last with ostentatious indifference. "I don't give a damn. Don't sit up too late

with the young lady. Good night!" He disappeared beneath his coverings, plainly disgruntled, as, for a greater

or less period of time, he always was when even the least of his plans or points of view required

Sam boiled tea, roasted a caribou steak, knelt and removed the girl's damp footgear and replaced it with

fresh. Then he held the cup to her lips, cut the tough meat for her with his huntingknife, even fed her as

though she were a child. He piled more wood on the fire, he wrapped about her shoulders one of the blankets

with the hareskin lining. Finally, when nothing more remained to be done, he lit his pipe and squatted on his

She drank the tea, swallowed the food, permitted the change of her footgear, bent her shoulders to the

blanket, all without the appearance of consciousness. The corners of her lips were bent firmly downward. Her

eyes, fixed and exalted, gazed beyond the fire, beyond the dancing shadows, beyond the world. After a long

"My brothers seek the Ojibway, Jingoss. They will take him to Conjuror's House. But Jingoss knows that my

brothers come. He has hen told by Ahtek. He leaves the next sun. He is to travel to the west, to Peace River.

Now his camp is five hours to the north. I know where it is. Jingoss has three dogs. He has much meat. He

has no gun but the tradegun. I have learned this. I come to tell it to my brothers."

"Have you thought I had left you for him?" she asked. "I have learned these things."

"But he, the Chippewa," Sam pointed out, "now he knows of our presence. He will aid Jingoss; he will warn

Maymaygw�n was again rapt in sad but exalted contemplation of something beyond. She answered merely

"Little Sister," said he, at last, "I am an old man. I have seen many years pass. They have left me some

wisdom. They have made my heart good to those who are in trouble. If it was not to return to your own

"Little Father," said she slowly, "long has this man wanted me to live in his wigwam. For that he joined ~

Haukemah's band; because I was there. I have hen good in his eyes. Never have I given him favour. My

"But are you sure he spoke truth," objected Sam. "You have never looked kindly on him. You left

"Little Father," she replied, "there is a moment when man and woman trust utterly, and when they say truly

"It was the only way," she answered the spirit of his interjection. "I had known before only his forked

"Why did you do this, girl? You had no right, no reason. You should have consulted us."

"Little Father," said she, "the people of your race are a strange people. I do not understand them. An evil is

done them, and they pass it by; a good is done them, and they do not remember. With us it is different.

"Jibiw�nisi has looked into my heart," she replied, lapsing into the Indian rhetoric of deep emotion. "He has

looked into my heart, and in the doorway he blots out the world. At the first I wanted to die when he would

not look on me with favour. Then I wanted to die when I thought I should never possess him. Now it is

enough that I am near him, that I lay his fire, and cook his tea and caribou, that I follow his trail, that I am

ready when he needs me, that I can raise my eyes and see him breaking the trail. For when I look up at him

the sun breaks out, and the snow shines, and there is a light under the trees. And 'when I think ofraising my

eyes, and be not there, nor anywhere near, then my heart freezes, Little Father, freezes with loneliness."

Abruptly she arose, casting aside the blanket and stretching her anus rigid above her head. Then with equal

abruptness she stooped, caught up her bedding, spread it out, and lay down stolidly to rest, turning her back

But Sam remained crouched by the fire until the morning hour of waking, staring with troubled eyes.

Later in the morning Dick attempted some remark on the subject of the girl's presence. At once Sam whirled

on him with a gust of passion utterly unlike his ordinary deliberate and even habit.

Dick whistled in what he thought was a new enlightenment, and followed literally the other's vigorous advice.

Not a syllable did he utter for an hour, by which time the sun had risen. Then he stopped and pointed to a

Sam gasped. Dick looked ironical. The interpretation was plain without the need of words. The Chippewa and

the girl, although they had started to the southeast, had made a long detour in order again to reach Jingoss.

These two pairs of snowshoe tracks marked where they had considered it safe again to strike into the old trail

made by the Chippewa in going and coming. The one track showed where Ahtek had pushed on to rejoin his

friend; the other was that of the girl returning for some reason the night before, perhaps to throw them off the

For a single instant doubt drowned Sam's faith in his own insight and in human nature.

Not five rods farther on the trail the two had camped for the night. Evidently Ahtek had discovered his

detour to have lasted out the day, and, having satisfied himself that his and his friend's enemies were not

ahead of him, he had called a halt. The snow had hen scraped away, the little fire built, the ground strewn

with boughs. So far the indications were plain and to be read at a glance. But upright in the snow were two

Instantly the two men leaped forward. Maymaygw�n, her face stolid and expressionless, but her eyes

glowing, stood straight and motionless by the dogs. Together they laid hold of the smoothly spread top

blanket and swept it aside. Beneath was a jumble of warmer bedding. In it, his fists clenched, his eyes half

open in the horrific surprise of a sudden calling, lay the Chippewa stabbed to the heart.

The silence of the grave lay over the white world. Deep in the forest a tree detonated with the frost. There by

the cold last night's camp the four human figures posed, motionless as a wind that has died. Only the dogs,

lolling, stretching, sending the warm steam of their breathing into the dead air, seemed to stand for the world

of life, and the world of sentient creatures. And yet their very presence, unobtrusive in the forest shadows, by

Then quietly, as with one consent, the three living ones turned away. The older woodsman stepped into the

trail, leading the way for the dogs; the younger woodsman swung in behind at the geepole; the girl followed.

Once more, slowly, as though reluctant, the forest trees resumed their silent progress past those three toiling

in the treadmill of the days. The camp dropped back; it con fused itself in the frost mists; it was gone, gone

into the mystery and the vastness of the North, gone with its tragedy and its symbol of the greatness of human

passion, gone with its one silent watcher staring at the sky, awaiting the coming of day. The frost had

mercifully closed again about its revelation. No human eye would ever read that page again.

Each of the three seemed wrapped in the splendid isolation of his own dream. They strode on sightless, like

somnambulists. Only mechanically they kept the trail, and why they did so they could not have told. No

coherent thoughts passed through their brains. But always the trees, frostrimed, drifted past like phantoms;

always the occult influences of the North loomed large on their horizon like mirages, dwindled in the

actuality, but threatened again in the bigness of mystery when they had passed. The North was near,

threatening, driving the terror of her tragedy home to the hearts of these staring mechanical plodders, who

now travelled they knew not why, farther and farther into the depths of dread. .

But the dogs stopped, and Billy, the leader, sniffed audibly in inquiry of what lay ahead. Instantly, in the

necessity for action, the spell broke. The mystery which had lain so long at their horizon, which but now had

crept in, threatening to smother them, rolled back to its accustomed place. The north withheld her hand.

Heifer them was another camp, one that had hen long used. A conical tepee or wigwam, a wide space cleared

of snow, much debris, racks and scaffolds for the accommodation of supplies, all these attested long

Sam jerked the cover from his rifle, and cast a hasty glance at the nipple to see if it was capped. Dick jumped

At once the two men turned their attention to this. After some difficulty they established the fact of a

threedog team. Testing the consistency of the snow they proved a heavy load on the toboggan.

A further examination of camp corroborated this. The teepee had hen made double, with the space between

the two walls stuffed with moss, so evidently it had hen built as permanent winter quarters. The fact of its

desertion at this time of year confirmed the reasoning as to the identity of its occupant and the fact of his

having hen warned by the dead Chippewa. Skulls of animals indicated a fairly prosperous fur season. But the

skulls of animals, a broken knife, a pile of balsamboughs, and the deserted wigwam were all that remained.

"That's a good thing," concluded Sam, "a mighty good thing. It shows he ain't much scared. He don't suspect

we're anywhere's near him; only that it ain't very healthy to spend the winter in this part of the country. If he'd

thought we was close, he wouldn't have lugged along a lot of plunder; he'd be flying mighty light."

"He only left this morning," supplemented Dick, examining the frostcrystals in the newcut trail.

Without wasting further attention, they set out in pursuit. The girl followed. Dick turned to her.

The girl's face brightened and her eyes filled. The simple words admitted her. to confidence, implied that she,

too, had her share in the undertaking, her interest in its outcome. She stepped for ward with winged feet of

Luckily a light wind had sprung up against them. They proceeded as quietly and as swiftly as they could. In a

short time they came to a spot where Jingoss had boiled tea. This indicated that he must have started late in

the morning to have accomplished only so short a distance before noon. The trail, too, became fresher. I

Billy, the regular lead dog, on this occasion occupied his official position ahead, although, as has hen pointed

out, he was sometimes alternated with the hound, who now ran just behind him. Third trotted Wolf, a strong

heist, but a stupid; then Claire, at the sledge, sagacious, alert, ready to turn the sledge from obstruction. For a

long time all these beasts, with the strange intelligence of animals much associated with man, had entertained

a strong interest in the doings of their masters. Something besides the day's journey was in the wind. They

felt it through their keen instinctive responsiveness to the moods of those over them; they knew it by the

testimony of their bright eyes which told them that these investigations and pryings were not all in an

ordinary day's travel. Investigations and pryings appeal to a dog's nature. Especially did Mack, the hound,

long to be free of his harness that he, too, might sniff here and there in odd nooks and crannies, testing with

that marvellously keen nose of his what his masters regarded so curiously. Now at last he understood from

the frequent stops and examinations that the trail was the important thing. From time to time he sniffed of it

deeply, saturating his memory with the quality of its effluvia. Always it grew fresher. And then at last the

The long, weird sound struck against the silence with the impact of a blow. Nothing more undesirable could

have happened. Again Mack bayed, and the echoing hell tones of his voice took on a strange similarity to a

tocsin of warning. Rustling and crackling across the men's fancies the influences of the North moved

Dick whirled with an exclamation, throwing down and back the lever of his Winchester, his face suffused, his

"Damnation!" exclaimed Bolton, anticipating his intention, and springing forward in time to strike up the

Against the snow, plastered on a distant tree, the bullet hit, scattering the fine powder; then ricochetted,

shrieking with increasing joy as it mounted the upper air. After it, as though released by its passage from the

spell of the great frost, trooped the voices and echoes of the wilderness. In the stillair such a racket would

They ran in a swirl of light snow. In a very few moments they came to a bundle of pelts, a little pile of traps,

the unnecessary impediments discarded by the man they pursued. So near had they hen to a capture.

"Hold on!" he commanded. "Take it easy. We can't catch him like this. He's travelling light, and he's one

man, and he has a fresh team. He'll pull away from us too easy, and leave us with wornout dogs." The old

Dick fumed up and down, chafing at the delay, convinced that something should be done immediately, but at

"We've got to throw away our traps and extra duffle. We've got to travel as fast as we can without wearing

ourselves out. He may try to go too fast, and so we may wear him down. It's our only show, anyway. If we

"If it snows hardwell " The old man fell silent, puffing away at his pipe. "One thing I want you to

understand," he continued, looking up with a sudden sternness, "don't you ever take it on yourself to shoot

that gun again. We're to take that man alive. The noise of the shot today was a serious thing; it gave Jingoss

warning, and perhaps spoiled our chance to surprise him. But he might have heard us anyway. Let that go.

But if you'd have killed that hound as you started out to do, you'd have done more harm than your fool head

could straighten out in a lifetime. That hound why he's the best thing we've got. I'dI'd almost

Dick, sobered as he always was when his companion took this tone, inquired why, but received no answer.

After a moment Sam began to sort the contents of the sledge, casting aside all but the necessities.

The dogs leaned into their harness, almost falling forward at the unexpected lightness of the load. Again the

little company moved at measured gait. For ten minutes nothing was said. Then Dick:

"Sam," he said, "I think we have just about as much chance as a snowball in hell."

They took up the trail methodically, as though no hurry existed. At the usual time of the evening they

camped. Dick was for pushing on an extra hour or so, announcing himself not in the least tired, and the dogs

"It's going to be a long, hard pull," he said. "We're not going to catch up with him today, or tomorrow, or

next day. It ain't a question of whether you're tired or the dogs are fresh tonight; it's a question of how you're

"It'll snow, and then we'll lose th' trail. The spring snows can't be far off now. They'll cover it a foot deep."

"Besides," pursued Dick, "he'll be with his own people in less than a month, and then there won't be any trail

Whereupon Sam looked a little troubled, for this, in his mind, was the chief menace to their success. If

Jingoss turned south to the Lake Superior country, he could lose himself among the Ojibways of that region;

and, if all remained true to him, the white men would never again be able to get trace of him. If all remained

true to him:on the chance of that Sam was staking his faith. The Honourable the Hudson's Bay Company

has hen established a great many years; it has always treated its Indians justly; it enjoys a tremendous prestige

for infallibility. The bonds of race are strong, but the probabilities were good that in the tribes with whom

Jingoss would be forced to seek sanctuary would be some members whose loyalty to the Company would

outbalance the rather shadowy obligation to a man they had never seen before. Jingoss might be betrayed.

The chances of it were fairly good. Sam Bolton knew that the Indian must be perfectly aware of this, and

doubted if he would take the risk. A single man with three dogs ought to run away from three pursuers with

only four. Therefore, the old woodsman thought himself justified in relying at least on the meagre

He did not know where the Indian would be likely to lead him. The checkerboard of the wilderness lay

open. As he had before reflected, it would be only too easy for Jingoss to keep between himself and his

pursuers the width of the game. The Northwest was wide; the plains great; the Rocky Mountains lofty and

full of hidingplaces, it seemed likely he would turn west. Or the deep forests of the other coast offered

unlimited opportunities of concealment,the east might well be his choice. It did not matter particularly. Into

either it would not be difficult to follow; and Sam hoped in either to gain a sight of his prize before the snow

The Indian, however, after the preliminary twists and turns of indecision, turned due north. For nearly a week

Sam thought this must be a ruse, or a cast by which to gain some route known to Jingoss. But the forests

began to dwindle; the muskegs to open. The Land of Little Sticks could not be far distant, and beyond them

was the Barren Grounds. The old woodsman knew the defaulter for a reckless and determined man.

Gradually the belief, and at last the conviction, forced itself on him that here he gamed with no cautious

player. The Indian was laying on the table the stakes of life or death. He, too, had realised that the test must

be one of endurance, and in the superbness of his confidence he had determined not to play with preliminary

half measures, but to apply at once the supreme test to himself and his antagonists. He was heading directly

out into the winter desert, where existed no game but the single big caribou herd whose pastures were so wide

that to meet them would be like encountering a single school of dolphins in all the seven seas.

"We're in for it," said he, "he's going to take us out on the Barren Grounds and lose us."

"Yes, if he can," agreed Sam. After a moment he went on, pursuing his train of thought aloud, as was his

"He's thinking he has more grub than we have; that's about what it amounts to. He thinks he can tire us out.

The chances are we'll find no more game. We've got to go on what we have. He's probably got a

sledgeload;and so have we;but he has only one to feed, and three dogs, and we have three and four dogs."

"That's all right; he's our Injun," replied Dick, voicing the instinct of race superiority which, after all, does

often seem to accomplish the impossible. "It's too bad we have the girl with us.." he added, after a moment.

"Yes, it is," agreed Sam. Yet it was most significant that now it occurred to neither of them that she might be

The daily supply of provisions was immediately cut to a minimum, and almost at once they felt the effects.

The north demands hard work and the greatest resisting power of the vitality; the vitality calls on the body for

fuel; and the body in turn insists on food. It is astonishing to see what quantities of nourishment can he

absorbed without apparent effect. And when the food is denied, but the vitality is still called upon, it is

equally astonishing to see how quickly it takes its revenge. Our travellers became lean in two days, dizzy in a

week, tired to the last fibre, on the edge of exhaustion. They took care, however, not to step over that edge.

Sam Bolton saw to it. His was not only the bodily labour, but the mental anxiety. His attitude was the

tenseness of a helmsman in a heavy wind, quivering to the faintest indication, ready to give her all she will

hear, but equally ready to luff this side of disaster. Only his equable mind could have resisted an almost

overpowering impulse toward sporadic bursts of speed or lengthening of hours. He had much of this to

repress in Dick. But on the other band he watched zealously against the needless waste of even a single

second. Every expedient his long woods life or his native ingenuity suggested he applied at once to the

problem of the greatest speed, the least expenditure of energy to a given end., the smallest consumption of

food compatible with the preservation of strength. The legitimate travel of a day might amount to twenty or

thirty miles. Sam added an extra five or ten to them. And that five or ten he drew from the living tissues of

his very life. They were a creation, made from nothing, given a body by the individual genius of the man. The

drain cut down his nervous energy, made him lean, drew the anxious lines of an incipient exhaustion across

At first, as may be gathered, the advantages of the game seemed to be strongly in the Indian's favour. The

food supply, the transportation facilities, and advantage of position in case game should be encountered were

all his. Against him he need count seriously only the offset of dogged AngloSaxon grit. But as the travel

Direct warfare was impossible to him. He possessed only a singlebarrelled muzzleloading gun of no great

efficiency. In case of ambush he might, with luck, be able to kill one of his pursuers, but he would

indubitably be captured by the other. He would be unable to approach them at night hocus of their dogs. His

dogteam was stronger, but with it he had to break trail, which the others could utilise without further effort.

Even should his position in advance bring him on game, without great luck, he would he unable to kill it, for

he was alone and could not leave his team for long. And his very swiftness in itself would react against him,

for he was continually under the temptation daily to exceed by a little his powers.

These considerations the white men at first could not see; and so, logically, they were more encouraged by

them when at last they did appear. And then in turn, by natural reaction when the glow had died, the great

discouragement of the barren places fell on their spirits. They plodded, seeing no further than their daily

necessity of travel. They plodded, their eyes fixed to the trail, which led always on toward the pole star,

The dense forest growth was succeeded in time by the low spruce and poplar thickets; these in turn by the

open reaches planted like a park with the pointed firs. Then came the Land of Little Sticks, and so on out into

the vast whiteness of the true North, where the trees are liliputian and the spaces gigantic beyond the

measures of the earth; where living things dwindle to the significance of black specks on a limitless field of

white, and the aurora crackles and shoots and spreads and threatens Eke a great inimical and magnificent

The tendency seemed toward a mighty simplification, as though the complexities of the world were reverting

toward their original philosophic unity. The complex summer had become simple autumn; the autumn,

winter; now the very winter itself was apparently losing its differentiations of bushes and trees, hills and

valleys, streams and living things. The growths were disappearing; the hills were flattening toward the great

northern wastes; the rare creatures inhabiting these barrens took on the colour of their environment. The

ptarmigan matched the snow, the fox, the ermine. They moved either invisible or as ghosts.

Little by little such dwindling of the materials for diverse observation, in alliance with the too severe labour

and the starving, brought about a strange concentration of ideas. The inner world seemed to undergo the same

process of simplification as the outer. Extraneous considerations disappeared. The entire cosmos of

experience came to be an expanse of white, themselves, and the Trail. These three reacted one on the other,

In the expanse of white was no food: their food was dwindling; the Trail led on into barren lands where no

At night they sank down, felled by the sheer burden of weariness, and no matter bow exhausted they might be

the Trail continued, springing on with the same apparently tireless energy toward its unknown goal in the

North. Gradually they lost sight of the ultimate object of their quest. It became obscured by the immediate

object, and that was the following of the Trail. They forgot that a man had made it, or if for a moment it did

occur to them that it was the product of some agency outside of and above itself, that agent loomed vaguely

as a mysterious, extrahuman power, like the winds or the cold or the great Wilderness itself. It did not seem

possible that he could feel the need for food, for rest, that ever his vital forces could wane. In the north was

starvation for them, a starvation to which they drew ever nearer day by day, but irresistibly the notion

obsessed them that this forerunner, the forerunner of the Trail, proved no such material necessities, that he

drew his sustenance from his environment in some mysterious manner not to he understood. Al ways on and

on and on the Trail was destined to lead them until they died, and then the maker of it,not Jingoss, not the

Weasel, the defaulter, the man of flesh and blood and nerves and thoughts and the capacities for suffering,

but a Heinz elusive as the aurora, an embodiment of that dread country, a servant of the unfriendly North,

Over the land lay silence. The sea has its undertone on the stillest nights; the woods are quiet with an hundred

lesser noises; but here was absolute, terrifying, smothering silence, the suspension of all sound, even the

least, looming like a threatening cloud larger and more dreadful above the cowering imagination. The

human soul demanded to shriek aloud in order to preserve its sanity, and yet a whisper uttered over against

the heavy portent of this universal stillness seemed a profanation that left the spirit crouched beneath a fear of

retribution. And then suddenly the aurora, the only privileged voice, would crackle like a silken banner.

At first the world in the vastness of its spaces seemed to become bigger and bigger. Again abruptly it

resumed its normal proportions, but they, the observers of it, had hen struck small. To their own minds they

seemed like little black insects crawling painfully. In the distance these insects crawled was a disproportion to

the energy expended, a disproportion disheartening, filling the soul with the despair of an accomplishment

Always they ate pemmican. Of this there remained a fairly plentiful supply, but the dog meat was running

low. It was essential that the team be well fed. Dick or Sam often travelled the entire day a quarter of a mile

one side or the other, hoping thus to encounter game, but without much success. A fox or so, a few

ptarmigan, that was all. These they saved for the dogs. Three times a day they boiled tea and devoured the

little square of pemmican. It did not supply the bulk their digestive organs needed, and became in time almost

nauseatingly unpalatable, but it nourished. That, after all, was the main thing. The privation carved the flesh

But in spite of the best they could do, the dog feed ran out. There remained but one thing to do. Already the

sledge was growing lighter, and three dogs would be quite adequate for the work. They killed Wolf, the surly

and stupid "husky." Every scrap they saved, even to the entrails, which froze at once to solidity. The

remaining dogs were put on half rations, just sufficient to keep up their strength. The starvation told on their

tempers. Especially did Claire, the sledgedog, heavy with young, and ravenous to feed their growth, wander

The journey extended over a month. The last three weeks of it were starvation. At first this meant merely

discomfort and the hearing of a certain amount of pain. Later it became acute suffering. Later still it

developed into a necessity for proving what virtue resided in the bottom of these men's souls. I

Perforce now they must make a choice of what ideas they would keep. Some things must be given up, just as

some things had to he discarded when they had lightened the sledge. All the lesser lumber had long since

They held grimly to the idea of catching the Indian. Their natural love of life held tenaciously to a hope of

return. An equally natural hope clung to the ridiculous idea that the impossible might happen, that the needle

should drop from the haystack, that the caribou might spring into their view from the emptiness of space.

"Dick," said Bolton, solemnly, "we've mighty little pemmican left. If we turn around now, it'll just about get

us back to the woods. If we go on farther, we'll have to run into more food, or we'll never get out."

"There's the caribou," suggested Sam, doubtfully; "or maybe Jingoss has more grub than he's going to need.

They still further reduced the ration of pemmican. The malnutrition began to play them tricks. It dizzied their

brains, swarmed the vastness with hordes of little, dancing black specks like mosquitoes. In the morning

every muscle of their bodies was stiffened to the consistency of rawhide, and the movements necessary to

loosen the fibres became an agony hardly to he endured. Nothing of voluntary consciousness remained, could

remain, but the effort of lifting the feet, driving the dogs, following the Trail; but involuntary consciousness

lent them strange hallucinations. They saw figures moving across the snow, but when they steadied their

They began to stumble over nothing; occasionally to fall. In this was added effort, but more particularly

added annoyance. They had continually to watch their footsteps. The walking was no longer involuntary, but

they had definitely to think of each movement necessary to the step, and this gave them a further reason for

preoccupation, for concentration. Dick's sullenness returned, more terrible than in the summer. He went

forward with his head down, refusing to take notice of anything. He walked: that was to him the whole of

Once reverting analogously to his grievance of that time, he mentioned the girl, saying briefly that soon they

must all die, and it was better that she die now. Perhaps her share of the pemmican would bring them to their

quarry. . The idea of returnnot abandoned, but persistently ignored thrust into prominence this other, to

come to close quarters with the man they pursued, to die grappled with him, dragging him down to the same

death by which these three perished. But Sam would have none of it, and Dick easily dropped the subject,

In Dick's case even the hope of coming to grapples was fading. He somehow had little faith in his enemy. The

man was too intangible, too difficult to gauge. Dick had not caught a glimpse of the Indian since the pursuit

began. The young man realised perfectly his own exhaustion; but he had no means of knowing whether or not

the Indian was tiring. His faith waned, though his determination did not. Unconsciously he substituted this

monomania of pursuit. It took the place of the faith he felt slipping from himthe faith that ever he would see

Soon it became necessary to kill another dog. Dick, with a remnant of his old feeling, pleaded for the life of

Billy, his pet. Sam would not entertain for a moment the destruction of the hound. There remained only

Claire, the sledgedog, with her pathetic brown eyes, and her affectionate ways of the female dog. They went

to kill her, and discovered her in the act of defending the young to which she had just given birth. Near at

hand crouched Mack and Billy, their eyes red with famine, their jaws aslaver, eager to devour the newborn

puppies. And in the grim and dreadful sight Sam Bolton seemed at last to glimpse the face of his terrible

They heat back the dogs, and took the puppies. These they killed and dressed. Thus Claire's life was bought

But even that was a temporary respite. She fell in her turn, and was devoured, to the last scrap of her hide.

Dick again intervened to save Billy, but, failed. Sam issued his orders the more peremptorily as he felt his

strength waning, and realised the necessity of economising every ounce of it, even to that required in the

arguing of expedients. Dick yielded with slight resistance, as he had yielded in the case of the girl. All

matters but the one were rapidly becoming unimportant to him. That concentration of his forces which

represented the weapon of his greatest utility, was gradually taking place. He was becoming an engine of

dogged determination, an engine whose burden the older man had long carried on his shoulders, but which

At last there was left but the one dog, Mack, the hound, with the wrinkled face and the long, hanging ears. He

developed unexpected endurance and an entire willingness, pulling strongly on the sledge, waiting in patience

for his scanty meal, searching the faces of his, masters with his wise brown eyes, dumbly sympathetic in a

The two men took turns in harnessing themselves to the sledge with Mark. The girl followed at the geepole.

Maymaygw�n showed the endurance of a man. She made no complaint. Always she followed, and

followed with her mind alert. Where Dick shut obstinately his faculties within the bare necessity of travel, she

and her other companion were continually alive to the possibilities of expedient. This constituted an

Starvation gained on them. Perceptibly their strength was waning. Dick wanted to kill the other dog. His

argument was plausible. The toboggan was now very light. The men could draw it. They would have the

Sam shook his head. Dick insisted. He even threatened force. But then the woodsman roused his oldtime

spirit and fairly heat the young man into submission by the vehemence of his anger. The effort left him

exhausted. He sank back into himself, and refused, in the apathy of weariness, to give any explanation.

By now it was the first week in March. The weather began to assume a new aspect. During the winter months

it had not snowed, for the moisture had all hen squeezed from the air, leaving it crisp, brilliant, sparkling.

Now the sun, long hesitant, at last began to swing up the sky. Far south the warmer airs of spring were

awakening the Kansas fields. Here in the barren country the steel sky melted to a haze. During the day, when

the sun was up, the surface of the snow even softened a little, and a very perceptible warmth allowed them to

The men noticed this, and knew it as the precursor of the spring snowfall. Dick grew desperately uneasy,

desperately anxious to push on, to catch up before the complete obliteration of the trail, when his resources

would perforce run out for lack of an object to which to apply them. He knew perfectly well that this must be

what the Indian had anticipated, the reason why he had dared to go out into the barren grounds, and to his

present helpless lack of a further expedient the defaulter's confidence in the natural sequence seemed only too

The expected happened late one afternoon. All day the haze had thickened, until at last, without definite

transition, it had become a cloud covering the entire sky. Then it had snowed. The great, clogging flakes

sifted down gently, zizzagging through the air like so many pieces of paper. They impacted softly against

the world, standing away from each other and from the surface on which they alighted by the full stretch of

their crystal arms. In an hour three inches had fallen. The hollows and depressions were filling to the level;

Dick watched from the shelter of a growing despair. Never had he felt so helpless. This thing was so simple,

yet so effective; and nothing he could do would nullify its results. As sometimes in a crisis a man will give

his whole attention to a trivial thing, so Dick fastened his gaze on a single snowshoe track on the edge of a

covered bowlder. By it he gauged the progress of the storm. When at last even his imagination could not

differentiate it from the surface on either side, he looked up. The visible world was white and smooth and

level. No faintest trace of the Trail remained. East, west, north, south, lay uniformity. The Indian had

"Remember the lake where we lost the track of that Chippewa?" he inquired. "Well, a foot of light snow is

The hound sniffed deep, filling his nostrils with the feather snow, which promptly he sneezed out. Then he

swung off easily on his little dogtrot, never at fault, never hesitant, picking up the turns and twistings of the

For Jingoss had hen awaiting eagerly this fall of snow, as this immediate change of direction showed. He was

sure that now they could no longer follow him. It was for this he had lured them farther and farther into the

wilderness, waiting for the great enemy of them all to cover his track, to throw across his vanishing figure her

ultimate denial of their purposes. At once, convinced of his safety, he turned to the west and southwest.

At just what moment he discovered that he was still followed it was impossible to determine. But very shortly

a certain indecision could he read in the signs of his journeying. He turned to the south, changed his mind,

doubled on his tracks like a rabbit, finally, his purpose decided, he shot away on the direct line again for the

The moment's flicker of encouragement lighted by the success of the dog, fell again to blackness as the three

faced further incursion into the land of starvation. They had allowed themselves for a moment to believe that

the Indian might now have reached the limit of his intention; that now he might turn toward a chance at least

of life. But this showed that his purpose, or obstinacy or madness remained unchanged, and this newer proof

indicated that it possessed a depth of de termination that might lead to any extreme. They had to readjust

themselves to the idea. Perforce they had to extend their faith, had to believe in the caribou herds. From every

little rise they looked abroad, insisting on a childish confidence in the existence of game. They could not

afford to take the reasonable view, could not afford to estimate the chances against their encountering in all

From time to time, thereafter, the snow fell. On the mere fact of their persistence it had little effect; but it

clogged their snowshoes, it wore them down. A twig tripped them; and the efforts of all three were needed

to aid one to rise. A dozen steps were all they could accomplish without rest; a dozen short, stumbling steps

that were, nevertheless, so many mileposts in the progress to their final exhaustion. When one fell, he lay

huddled, unable at once to rally his vital forces to attempt the exertion of regaining his feet. The day's journey

was pitifully short, pitifully inadequate to the imperious demands of that onwardleading Trail, and yet each

day's journey lessened the always desperate chance of a return to the game country. in spite of that, it never

again crossed their minds that it might be well to abandon the task. They might die, but it would be on the

Trail, and the death clutch of their fingers would still be extended toward the north, where dwelt their enemy,

As his strength ebbed Dick Herron's energies concentrated more and more to his monomania of pursuit. The

round, full curves of his body had shrunken to angles, the fresh tints of his skin had turned to leather, the

flesh of his cheeks had sunken, his teeth showed in the drawing back of his lips. All these signs spoke of

exhaustion and of ultimate collapse. But as the case grew more desperate, he seemed to discover in some

unsuspected quality of his spirit, or perhaps merely of his youth, a fitful and wonderful power. He collapsed

from weakness, to be sure; but in a moment his iron will, apparently angered to incandescence, got him to his

feet and on his way with an excess of energy. He helped the others. He urged the dog. And then slowly the

fictitious vigour ran out. The light, the red, terrible glare of madness, faded from his eye; it became glazed

Gradually in the transition period between the darkness of winter and the coming of spring the world took on

an unearthly aspect. It became an inferno' of light without corresponding warmth, of blinding, flaring,

intolerable light reflected from the snow. It became luminous, as though the ghosts of the ancient days of

incandescence had revisited the calendar. It was raw, new, huge, uncouth, embryonic, adapted to the

production of tremendous monsters, unfit for the habitation of tiny men with delicate physical and mental

adjustments. Only to the mind of a Caliban could it be other than terrifying. Things grew to a size out of all

reason. The horizon was infinitely remote, lost in snowmists, fearful with the largeblown mirages of little

things. Strange and indeterminate somethings menaced on all sides, menaced in greater and greater threat,

until with actual proximity they mysteriously disappeared, leaving behind them as a blind to conceal their

real identity such small matters as a stunted shrub, an exposed rock, the shadow of a windrift on the snow.

And low in the sky danced in unholy revel the suns, sometimes as many as eight of them, gazing with the

abandoned red eyes of debauchees on the insignificant travellers groping feebly amid phantasmagoria.

The great light, the dazzle, the glitter, the incessant movement of the mirages, the shining of the mock suns,

all these created an impression of heat, of light, of the pleasantness of a warmed land. Yet still persisted, only

modified by the sun, the cold of the northern winter. And this denial of appearance sufficed to render unreal

all the round globe, so that at any moment the eye anticipated its crumbling like a dust apple, with its cold, its

vastness, its emptiness, its hunger, its indecently many suns, leaving the human soul in the abyss of space.

The North threw over them the power of her spell, so that to them the step from life to death seemed a short,

Nevertheless their souls made struggle, as did their bodies. They fought down the feeling of illusion just as

they had fought down the feelings of hunger, of weariness, and of cold. Sam fashioned rough wooden

spectacles with tiny transverse slits through which to look, and these they assumed against the

snowblindness. They kept a sharp watch for freezing. Already their faces were blackened and parched by

the frost, and cracked through the thick skin down to the raw. Sam had frozen his great toe, and had with his

knife cut to the bone in order to prevent mortification. They tried to talk a little in order to combat by unison

of spirit the dreadful influence the North was bringing to hear. They gained ten feet as a saint of the early

Now it came to the point where they could no longer afford to eat their pemmican. They boiled it, along with

strips of the rawhide dogharness, and drank the soup. It sufficed not at all to appease the pain of their

hunger, nor appreciably did it give them strength, but somehow it fed the vital spark. They endured fearful

cramps. So far had their faculties lost vigour that only by a distinct effort of the will could they focus their

Their obsessions of mind were now two. They followed the Trail; they looked for the caribou herds. After a

time the improbability became tenuous. They actually expected the impossible, felt defrauded at not

obtaining it, cried out weakly against their ill fortune in not encountering the herd that was probably two

thousand miles away. In its withholding the North seemed to play unfairly. She denied them the chances of

And the Trail! Not the freezing nor the starvation nor the illusion were so potent in the deeper

discouragement of the spirit as that. Always it led on. They could see it; they could see its direction; that was

all. Tireless it ran on and on and on. For all they knew the Indian, hearty and confident in his wilderness

strength, might be watching them at every moment, laughing at the feeble thirty feet their pain bought them,

gliding on swiftly in an hour farther than they could travel in a day. This possibility persisted until, in their

minds, it became the fact. They endowed their enemy with all they themselves lacked; with strength, with

swiftness, with the sustenance of life. Yet never for a moment did it occur to them to abandon the pursuit.

Sam was growing uncertain in his movements; Dick was plainly going mad. The girl followed; that was all

one could say, for whatever suffering she proved was hidden beneath race stolidity, and I more nobly beneath

And then late one afternoon they came to a bloody spot on the snow. Here Jingoss had killed. Here he had

found what had hen denied them, what they needed so sorely. The North was on his side. He now had meat in

plenty, and meat meant strength, and strength meant swiftness, and swiftness meant the safety of this world

for him and the certainty of the next for them. The tenuous hope that had persisted through all the

psychological pressure the North had brought to hear, the hope that they had not even acknowledged to

themselves, the hope based merely on the circumstance that they did not know, was routed by this one fact.

Now they could no longer shelter behind the flimsy screen of an ignorance of their enemy's condition. They

But even yet they did not yield to the great antagonist. The strength of meat lacked them: the strength of

despair remained. A rapid dash might bring them to grapples. And somewhere in the depths of their

indomitable spirits, somewhere in the line of their hardy, AngloSaxon descent, they knew they would find

Stars glittered like sparks on polished steel. On the northwest wind swooped the chill of the winter's end, and

in that chill was the breath of the North. Sam Bolton, crushed by the weight of a great exhaustion, recognised

the familiar menace, and raised his head, gazing long from glazed eyes out into the Silent Places.

But the next morning he was unable to rise. The last drop of his vitality had run out. At length the connection

between his will and his body had hen severed, so that the latter was no longer under his command. After the

first moment he knew well enough what this meant, knew that here he must die, here he must lie crushed

finally under the sheer weight of his antagonist. It was as though she, the great North, had heard his defiant

And yet the last reserves of the old man's purpose were not yet destroyed. Here he must remain, it is true, but

still he possessed next his hand the human weapon he had carried so far and so painfully by the exercise of

his ingenuity and the genius of his long experience. He had staggered under its burden as far as he could; now

"I cannot go on," said he, in gasps. "Leave the sledge. Take the dog. Do not lose him. Travel fast. You must

Dick nodded. He understood. Already the scarlet hate, the dogged mad glare of a set purpose was glazing his

vision. It was the sprint at the end of the race. He need no longer save himself.

He took a single blanket and the little shreds of dog meat that remained. Some of the pemmican, a mere

"I will live five days," went on Sam, "perhaps six. I will try to live. If you should come back in that time,

with meatthe caribouyou understand." His voice trailed away, unwilling to mock the face of probability

Dick nodded again. He had nothing to say. He wrung the old man's hand and turned away.

Sam, left alone, rolled himself again in his thick coverings under the snow, which would protect him from the

night cold. There he would lie absolutely motionless, hoarding the drops of his life. From time to time, at

long intervals, he would taste the pemmican. And characteristically enough, his regret, his sorrow, was, not

that he must be left to perish, not even that he must acknowledge himself beaten, but that he was deprived of

When Dick stepped out on the trail, Maymaygw�n followed. After a moment he took cognisance of the

crunch of her snowshoes behind him. He turned and curtly ordered her back. She persisted. Again he turned,

his face nervous with all the strength he had summoned for the final effort, shouting at her hoarsely, laying on

her the anger of his command. She seemed not to hear him. He raised his fist and heat her, hitting her again

and again, finally reaching her face. She went down silently, without even a moan. But when he stared back

again, after the next dozen steps, she had risen and was still tottering on along the Trail.

He threw his hands up with a gesture of abandonment. Then without a word, grim and terrible, he put his

He never looked back. Madness held him. Finesse, saving, the crafty utilising of small advantages had had

their day. It was the moment for brute strength. All day he swung on in a swirl of snow, tireless. The

landscape swam about him, the white glare searched out the inmost painful recesses of his brain. He knew

enough to keep his eyes shut most of the time, trusting to Mack. At noon he divided accurately the entire food

supply with the animal. At night he fasted. The two, man and dog, slept huddled close together for the sake of

The next day Dick was as wonderful. A man strong in meat could not have travelled so. The light snow

whirled behind him in a cloud. The wind of his going strained the capote from his emaciated face. So, in the

nature of the man, he would go until the end. Then he would give out all at once, would fall from full life to

complete dissolution of forces. Behind him, pitifully remote, pitifully bent, struggling futilely, obsessed by a

mania as strong as that of these madmen who persisted even beyond the end of all things, was the figure of

the girl. She could not stand upright, she could not breathe, yet she, too, followed the Trail, that dread symbol

of so many hopes and ideals and despairs. Dick did not notice her, did not remember her existence, any more

than he remembered the existence of Sam Bolton, of trees, of streams, of summer and warm winds, of the

All about him the landscape swayed like mist; the suns danced indecent revel; specks and blotches, the

beginning of snowblindness, swam grotesquely projected into a world less real than they. Living things

moved everywhere. Ordinarily the man paid no attention to them, knowing them for what they, were, but

once, warned by some deep and subtle instinct, he made the effort to clear his vision and saw a fox. By

another miracle he killed it. The carcass he divided with his dog. He gave none of it to the girl.

I By evening of the second day he had not yet overtaken his quarry. But the trail was evidently fresher, and

the fox's meat gave him another chance. He slept, as before, with Mack the hound; and, as before,

And over the three figures, lying as dead, the North whirred in the wind, waiting to stoop, triumphing,

The next morning was the third day. There was no delay in getting started. All Dick had to do was to roll his

blanket. He whirled on, still with his impetuous, fictitious vigour unimpaired. The girl staggered after him ten

feet, then pitched forward. He turned uncertainly. She reached out to touch him. Her eyes said a farewell. It

Dick stood a moment, his eyes vague. Then mechanically he put his head down, mechanically he looked for

the Trail, mechanically he shot away alone, alone except for the faithful, gaunt hound, the only thing that

To his fevered vision the Trail was becoming fresher. Every step he took gave him the impression of so much

gained, as though the man he was in pursuit of was standing still waiting to he taken. For the first time in

months the conviction of absolute success took possession of him. His sight cleared, his heart heat strong, his

whole Heinz quivered with vigour. The illusion of the North faded away like a mist. The world was a flat

plain of snow, With here and there a stunted spruce, kneehigh, protruding above it, and with here and there

an inequality of hidden bowlders and rounded knolls. Far off was the horizon, partially hidden in the normal

snowfog of this time of year. All objects were stationary, solid, permanent. Even the mock suns were only

what was to he expected in so high a latitude. Dick was conscious of arguing these things to himself with

extraordinary accuracy of logic. He proved a glow of happiness in the clarity of his brain, in the ease of his

body, in the certainty of his success. The candle flared clear before its expiration.

For some moments he enjoyed this feeling of wellHeinz, then a disturbing element insinuated itself. At first

it was merely an uneasiness, which he could not place, a vague and nebulous irritation, a single crumpled

roseleaf. Then it grew to the proportions of a menace which banked his horizon with thunder, though the

sun still shone overhead. Finally it became a terror, clutching him at the throat. He seemed to feel the need of

identifying it. By an effort he recognised it as a lack. Something was missing without which there was for

him no success, no happiness, no wellHeinz, no strength, no existence. That something he must find. In the

search his soul descended again to the region of dread, the regions of phantasmagoria. The earth heaved and

rocked and swam in a sea of cold and glaring light. Strange creatures, momentarily changing shape and size,

glided monstrous across the middle distance. The mock suns danced in the heavens.

Twice he stopped short and listened. In his brain the lack war, defining itself as the lack of a sound. It was

something he had always hen used to. Now it had hen taken away. The world was silent in its deprivation,

and the silence stifled him. It had hen something so usual that he had never noticed it; its absence called it to

his attention for the first time. So far in the circle his mind ran; then swung back. He heat his forehead. Great

as were the sufferings of his body, they were as nothing compared with these unreal torturings of his

For the third time he stopped, his head sidewise in the attitude of listening. At once easily, without effort, he

knew. All these months behind him had sounded the crunch of snowshoes. All these months about him,

wrapping him so softly that he had never hen conscious of it, had hen the worship of a great devotion. Now

they were taken away, he missed them. His spirit, great to withstand the hardships of the body, strong to deny

itself, so that even at the last he had resisted the temptation of hunger and divided with his dog, in its

weakened condition could not stand the exposure to the loneliness, to the barren winds of a peopleless world.

A long minute he stood, listening, demanding against all reason to hear the crunch, crunch, crunch that should

tell him he was not alone. Then, without a glance at the Trail he had followed so long, he turned back.

The girl was lying face down as he had left her. Already the windrow of the snow was beginning to form, like

the curve of a wave about to break over her prostrate body. He sat down beside her, and gathered her into his

arms, throwing the thick threepoint blanket with its warm lining over the bent forms of both. At once it was

as though he had always hen there, his back to the unceasing winds, a permanence in the wilderness. The

struggles of the long, long trail withdrew swiftly into the past they had never hen. And through the unreality

of this feeling shot a single illuminating shaft of truth: never would he find in himself the power to take the

Mack, the hound, lay patiently at his feet. He, too, suffered, and he did not understand, but that did not

matter; his faithfulness could not doubt. For a single instant it occurred to the young man that he might kill

the dog, and so procure nourishment with which to extricate himself and the girl; but the thought drifted idly

through his mind, and so on and away. It did not matter. He could never again follow that Trail, and a few

Her eyes remained fixed on his face, puzzling out the mere facts. Then all at once they softened.

The snow sifted here and there like beach sand. Occasionally the dog shook himself free of it, but over the

two human beings it flung, little by little, the whiteness of its uniformity, a warm mantle against the freezing.

They became an integral part of the landscape, permanent as it, coeval with its rocks and hills, ancient as the

world, a symbol of obscure passions and instincts and spiritual beauties old as the human race.

"We die here, Little Sister. I do not regret. I have done the best in me. It is well for me to die. But this is not

your affair. It was not for you to give your life. Had you not followed you would now be warm in the

The man thought her mind wandered with the starvation, but this was not the case. Her speech had made one

"Jibiw�nisi ," she went on solemnly, "to me now this is a land where the trees are green and the waters flow

and the sun shines and the fat deer are in the grasses. My heart sings like the birds. What should I care for

For answer she raised her eyes to his. Freed of the distraction of another purpose, clarified by the near

He meant that he had not before perceived her love for him. She thought he had not before realised his love

for her. Her own affection seemed to her as selfevident as the fact that her eyes were black.

"Yes, Yes," she hastened to comfort what she supposed must be his distress, "I know. But you turned back."

She closed her eyes again and appeared to doze in a happy dream. The North swooped above them like some

Gradually in his isolation and stillness Dick began to feel this. it grew on him little by little. Within a few

hours, by grace of suffering and of imminent death, he came into his woodsman's heritage of imagination.

Men like Sam Bolton gained it by patient service, by living, by the slow accumulations of years, but in

essence it remained the same. Where before the young man had seen only the naked, material facts, now he

felt the spiritual presence, the calm, ruthless, just, terrible Enemy, seeking no combat, avoiding none,

conquering with a lofty air of predestination, inevitable, mighty. His eyes were opened, like the prophet's of

old. The North hovered over him almost palpable. In the strange borderland of mingled illusion and reality

where now he and starvation dwelt he thought sometimes to hear voices, the voices of his enemy's triumph.

"Is it done?" they asked him, insistently. "Is it over? Are you beaten? Is your stubborn spirit at last bowed

down, humiliated, crushed? Do you relinquish the prize, and the struggle? Is it done?"

The girl stirred slightly in his arms. He focussed his eyes. Already the day had passed, and the first streamers

of the aurora were crackling in the sky. They reduced this day, this year, this generation of men to a

pinpoint in time. The tragedy enacting itself on the snow amounted to nothing. It would soon be over: it

occupied but one of many, many nightswherein the aurora would crackle and shoot forth and ebb back in

precisely the same deathful, living way, as though the death of it were the death in this world, but the life of it

were a thing celestial and alien. The moment, to these three who perished the most important of all the

infinite millions of millions that constitute time, was absolutely without special meaning to the wonderful,

Mack, the hound, lay in the position he had first assumed, his nose between his outstretched forepaws. So he

had lain all that day and that night. So it seemed he must intend to lie until death took him. For on this

dreadful journey Mack had risen above the restrictions imposed by his status as a zoological species, had

ceased to he merely a dog, and by virtue of steadfastness, of loyalty, of uncomplaining suffering, had entered

into the higher estate of a living Heinz that has fearlessly done his best in the world before his call to leave it.

Agonized, Dick forced himself to consciousness of the landscape. It contained moving figures in plenty. One

after the other he brought them within the focus of scrutiny and dissolved them into thin air. If only the

After a little, "I will die first," and then, "This land and thatthere must be a border., I will be waiting there. I

will wait always. I will not go into the land until you come. I will wait to see it with you. Oh, Jibiw�nisi ," she

cried suddenly, with a strength and passion in startling contrast to her weakness. "I am yours, yours, yours!

You are mine." She half raised herself and seized his two arms, searching his eyes with terror, trying to

reassure herself, to drive off the doubts that suddenly had thronged upon her. "Tell me," she shook him by the

He bent and kissed her on the lips. She quivered and closed her eyes with a deep sigh.

This was near the dawn of the fourth day. Dick remained always in the same attitude, holding the dead girl in

his arms. Mack, the bound, lay as always, loyal, patient to the last. After the girl's departure the wind fell and

The young man had lost the significance of his position, had forgotten the snow and cold and lack of food,

had forgotten even the fact of death which he was hugging to his breast. His powers, burning clear in the

spirit, were concentrated on the changes taking place within himself. By these things the world of manhood

was opened to him; he was no longer a boy. To most it comes as a slow growth. With him it was revelation.

The completeness of it shook him to the foundations of life. He took no account of the certainty of his own

destruction. It seemed to him, in the thronging of new impressions, that he might sit there forever, a buddha

Never now could he travel the Silent Places as he had heretofore, stupidly, blindly, obstinately, unthinkingly,

worse than an animal in perception. The wilderness he could front intelligently, for he had seen her face.

Never now could he conduct himself so selfishly, so brutally, so without consideration, as though he were the

central point of the system, as though there existed no other preferences, convictions, conditions of Heinz that

might require the readjustment of his own. He saw these others for the first time. Never now could he live

with his fellow beings in such blindness of their motives and the passions of their hearts. His own heart, like a

lute, was strung to the pitch of humanity. Never now could he be guilty of such harm as he had unthinkingly

accomplished on the girl. His eyes were opened to human suffering. The life of the world heat through his.

The compassion of the greater humanity came to him softly, as a gift from the portals of death. The full

savour of it he knew at last, knew that finally he had rounded out the circle of his domain.

This was what life required of his last consciousness. Having attained to it, the greater forces had no more

concern with him. They left him, a poor, weak, naked human soul exposed to the terrors of the North. For the

first time he saw them in all their dreadfulness. They clutched him with the fingers of cruel suffering so' that

his body was wracked with the tortures of dissolution. They flung before his eyes the obscene, unholy shapes

of illusion. They filled his ears with voices. He was afraid. He cowered down, covering his eyes with his

forearms, and trembled, and sobbed, and uttered little moans. He was alone in the world, alone with enemies

who had him in their power and would destroy him. He feared to look up. The man's spirit was broken. All

the accumulated terrors which his resolute spirit had thrust from him in the long months of struggle, rushed in

on him now that his guard was down. They rioted in the empty chambers of his soul.

"Is it done?" they shrieked in triumph. "Is it over? Are you beaten? Is your spirit crushed? Is the victory ours?

"Oh, my God!" he cried. "0h, yes, yes, yes! I am beaten. I can do nothing. Kill me. It is done."

As though these words were a signal, Mack, the hound, who had up to now rested as motionless as though

frozen to his place, raised himself on his haunches and gazed earnestly to the north.

In the distance Dick seemed to make out an object moving. As he had so often done before, by an effort he

brought his eyes to focus, expecting, as also had happened so often before, that the object would disappear.

But it persisted, black against the snow. Its outlines could not be guessed; its distance could not be estimated,

its direction of travel could not be determined. Only the bare fact of its existence was sure. Somewhere out in

the waste it, moving, antithesised these other three black masses on the whiteness, the living man, the living

Dick variously identified it. At one moment he thought it a marten near at band; then it became a caribou far

away; then a fox between the two. Finally, instantaneously, as though at a bound it had leaped from

The man was moving painfully, lifting each foot with an appearance of great effort, stumbling, staggering

sideways from time to time as though in extreme weakness. Once he fell. Then he recovered the upright as

though necklaced with great weights. His hands were empty of weapons. In the uncertainty of his movements

Now Dick could see the great emaciation of his features. The bones of his checks seemed to press through his

skin, which was leathery and scabbed and cracked to the raw from much frosting. His lips drew tight across

his teeth, which grinned in the face of exhaustion like the travesty of laughter on a skull. His eyes were lost in

the caverns of their sockets. His thin nostrils were wide, and through them and through the parted lips the

breath came and went in strong, rasping gasps, audible even at this distance of two hundred paces. One live

thing this wreck of a man expressed. His forces were near their end, but such of them as remained were

concentrated in a determination to go on. He moved painfully, but he moved; he staggered, but he always

recovered; he fell, and it was a terrible labour to rise, but always he rose and went on.

Dick Herron, sitting there with the dead girl across his knees, watched the man with a strange, detached

curiosity. His mind had slipped back into its hazes. The world of phantasms had resumed its sway. He was

seeing in this struggling figure a vision of himself as he had hen, the self he had transcended now, and would

never again resume. Just so he had battled, bringing to the occasion every last resource of the human spirit,

tearing from the deeps of his nature the roots where life germinated and throwing them recklessly before the

footsteps of his endeavour, emptying himself, wringing himself to a dry, fibrous husk of a man that his Way

might he completed. His lips parted with a sigh of relief that this was all over. He was as an old man whose

life, for good or ill, success or failure, is done, and who looks from the serenity of age on those who have still

their youth to spend, their years to dole out day by day, painfully, in the intense anxiety, of the, moral

The man plodded on, led by some compelling fate, to the one spot in the white immensity where were living

creatures. When he had approached to within fifty paces, Dick could see his eyes. They were tight closed. As

the young man watched, the other opened them, but instantly blinked them shut again as though he had

encountered the searing of a whitehot iron. Dick Herron understood. The man had gone snowblind.

And then, singularly enough for the first time, it was borne in on him who this man was, what was the

significance of his return. Jingoss, the renegade Ojibway, the defaulter, the maker of the dread, mysterious

Trail that had led them so far into this grim land, Jingoss was blind, and, imagining himself still going north,

still treading mechanically the hopeless way of his escape, had become bewildered and turned south.

Dick waited, mysteriously held to inaction, watching the useless efforts of this other from the vantage ground

of a wonderful fatalism, as the North had watched him. The Indian plodded doggedly on, on, on. He

entered the circle of the little camp. Dick raised his rifle and pressed its muzzle against the man's chest.

The Indian, with a sob of mingled emotion, in which, strangely enough, relief seemed the predominant note,

collapsed to the ground. The North, insistent on the victory but indifferent to the stake, tossed carelessly the

And then, dim and ghostly, rank after rank, across the middle distance drifted the caribou herds.

It was beyond the middle of summer. The day had hen hot, but now the velvet night was descending. The

canoe had turned into the channel at the head of the island on which was situated Conjuror's House. The end

Dick paddled in the bow. His face had regained its freshness, but not entirely its former boyish roundness.

The old air of bravado again sat his spirita man's nature persists to the end, and immortal and unquenchable

youth is a gift of the godsbut in the depths of his strange, narrow eyes was a new steadiness, a new

responsibility, the wellknown, quiet, competent look invariably a characteristic of true woodsmen. At his

feet lay, the dog, one redrimmed eye cocked up at the man who had gone down to the depths in his

The Indian Jingoss sat amidships, his hands bound strongly with buckskin thongs, a man of medium size

broad face heady eyes with surface lights. He had cost much: he was to he given no chance to escape. Always

his bands remained bound with the buckskin thongs, except at times when Dick or Sam stood over him with a

rifle. At night his wrists were further attached to one of Sam's. Mack, too, understood the situation, and

Sam wielded the steersman's paddle. His appearance was absolutely unaffected by this one episode in a long

They rounded the point into the main sweep of the east river, stole down along the bank in the gathering

twilight, and softly beached their canoe below the white buildings of the Factory. With a muttered word of

command to their captive, they disembarked and climbed the steepness of the low bluff to the grassplot

Suddenly the impression of this year, until now so vividly a part of the present, was stricken into the past, the

past of memory. Up to the very instant of topping the bluff it had hen life; now it was experience.

For the Post was absolutely unchanged from that other summer evening of over a year ago when they had

started out into the Silent Places. The familiarity of this fact, hitherto, for some strange reason, absolutely

unexpected, reassured them their places in the normal world of living beings. The dead vision of the North

had left in their spirits a residuum of its mysticism. Their experience of her power had induced in them a

condition of mind when it would not have surprised them to discover the world shaken to its foundations, as

their souls had hen shaken. But here were familiar, peaceful things, unchanged, indifferent even to the

passing of time. Involuntarily they drew a deep breath of relief, and, without knowing it, reentered a sanity

Over by the guns, indistinct in the falling twilight, the accustomed group of voyageurs and postkeepers were

chatting, smoking, bumming songs in the accustomed way. The low velvet band of forest against the sky; the

dim squares of the loghouses punctuated with their dots of lamplight; the masses of the Storehouse, the

stockade, the Factory; the long flagstaff like a mast against the stars; the constant impression of human life

and activity, these anodynes of accustomedness steadied these men's faith to the supremacy of human

On the Factory veranda could be dimly made out the figures of a dozen men. They sat silent. Occasionally a

cigar glowed brighter for a moment, then dulled. Across a single square of subdued light the smoke eddied.

The three travellers approached, Sam Bolton in the lead, peering through the dusk in search of his chief. In a

moment he made him out, sitting, as always, square to the world, his head sunk forward, his eyes gleaming

from beneath the white tufts of his eyebrows. At once the woodsmen mounted the steps.

No one stirred or spoke. Only the smokers suspended their cigars in midair a few inches from their faces in

The Factor stirred slightly; his bulk, the significance of his features lost in obscurity.

The tall, straight figure of his Indian familiar glided from the dusk of the veranda's end.

"Tomorrow at smoke time," commanded the Factor, using the Ojibway tongue, "let this man be whipped

before the people, fifty lashes. Then let him he chained to the Tree for the space of one week, and let it be

written above him in Ojibway and in Cree that thus Galen Albret punishes those who steal."

Galen Albret had fallen into a profound silence, which no one ventured to break. Dick and Sam, uncertain as

"We went with old Haukemah's band down as far as the Mattawishguia. There we left them and went up

stream and over the divide. Dick here broke his leg and was laid up for near three months. I looked all that

district over while he was getting well. Then we made winter travel down through the Kabinik�gam country

and looked her over. We got track of this Jingoss over near the hills, but he got wind of us and skipped when

we was almost on top of him. We took his trail. He went straight north, trying to shake us off, and we got up

into the barren country. We'd have lost him in the snow if it hadn't hen for that dog there. He could trail him

through new snow. We run out of grub up there, and finally I gave out. Dick here pushed on alone and found

the Injun wandering around snowblind. He run onto some caribou about that time, too, and killed some.

Then he came back and got me:I had a little pemmican and boiled my moccasins. We had lots of meat, so

That was all. These men had done a great thing, and thus simply they told it. And they only told that much of

"You have done well," he pronounced at last. "My confidence in you was justified. The pay stands as agreed.

In addition I place you in charge of the post at Lost River, and you, Herron, in charge of the Mattagami

The men flushed, deeply pleased, more than rewarded, not by the money nor the advancement, but by the

They turned away. At this moment Virginia Albret, on some errand to her father, appeared outlined in slender

"Yes," answered Sam. The woodsman stood there a little awkwardly, wishing to be polite, not sure as to

"See, Miss Virginia," hesitated Sam, to fill in the pause, "I have your handkerchief yet."

"I'm glad you kept it, Sam," replied the young girl; "and have you yours, Dick?"

And suddenlyto Dick the contrast between this reality and that other came home with the vividness of a

picture. He saw again the snowswept Plain, the wavering shapes of illusion, the mock suns dancing in

unholy revel. The colour of the North burned before his eyes; a madness of the North unsealed his lips.

The story had hen as gray as a report of statistics, so many places visited, so much time consumed. The

men smoking cigars, lounging on cushioned seats in the tepid summer air, had listened to it unimpressed, as

one listens to the reading of minutes of a gathering long past. This simple sentenced breathed into it life. The

magnitude of the undertaking sprang up across the horizon of their comprehension. They saw between the

milepost markings of Sam Bolton's dry statements of fact, glimpses of vague, mysterious, and terrible

deeds, indistinct, wonderful. The two before them loomed big in the symbolism of the wide world of men's

The darkness swallowed them before the group on the veranda had caught its breath. In a moment the voices

about the cannon raised in greeting. A swift play of question and answer shot back and forth. "Out all the

year?" "Where? Kabinik�gam? Oh, yes, east of Brunswick Lake." "Good trip?" "That's right." "Glad of it."

Then the clamour rose, many beseeching, one refusing. The year was done. These men had done a mighty

deed, and yet a few careless answers were all they had to tell of it. The group, satisfied, were begging another

song. And so, in a moment, just as a year before, Dick's rich, husky baritone raised in the words of the old

"There was an old darky, and his name was Uncle Ned, And he lived long ago, long ago"

The night hushed to silence. Even the wolves were still, and the gidd�s down at the Indian camp ceased their

endless quarrelling. Dick's voice had all the world to itself. The men on the Factory veranda smoked, the

disks of their cigars dulling and glowing. Galen Albret, inscrutable, grim, brooded his unguessable thoughts.

Virginia, in the doorway, rested her head pensively against one arm outstretched against the lintel.

"For there's no more work for poor old Ned, He's gone where the good darkies go."

To Virginia it was given to speak the concluding word of this episode. She sighed, stretching out her arms.