Part 4

When half-way up the line, he heard a voice calling behind him, “Tritou! Tritou! Ah leave de dog h’at Rivière Noire to-mor’! Rememb’ Jules Verbaux. Au r’voir!” then a laugh, and all was still. Tritou rushed back, falling down twice in his frantic speed, and came to the tree to which he had tied the dogs; they were gone! Sledge, dogs, everything was gone! Forty yards away his rifle stuck up, butt first, in the snow, and the cartridges were scattered about on the crust at his feet. Far off he heard a faint crackling, but it died away instantly, and all was quiet.

He cried and screamed with rage for a time; then, picking up the shells and gun, he started on his forty-mile tramp to the post.

VI

NOËL

IT was the day before Christmas. Jules was sitting in his home camp, sixty miles from the post; he was lonely and sad. “Las’ Noël Ah have ma femme, la petite, touts; an’ maintenant—” he looked about the bare little room, “bon Dieu, ’Ow lonelee eet ees!”

It was a cheerless scene. Walls of bare logs, with moss plugged between them to keep out the cold; a rude table; two misshapen stools; a bed of boughs in one corner, with some blankets heaped on it; a little chimney of small timber sticking out diagonally in another corner; and a few old clothes hanging on wooden pegs near the door.

“Ah, b’en,” Jules said to himself, “eet ees de will of le bon Dieu. Ah mus’ mak’ t’ink dat de wife an’ de leetle vone aire veet’ me for to-mor’ jus’ same.” He became full of life with the thought, and bustled about the little hut, sweeping the hard ground with a spruce bough broom; he carried out the old bed, and filled its place with fresh aromatic boughs; then he brought streamers of moss from the woods, and festooned them around the walls. In the corners he built little canopies of dark green branches, and hung bunches of scarlet berries over the gray logs. The old clothes were neatly wrapped up and stowed away under the boughs; on their pegs he hung a big caribou-skin, its gray-brown colour mingling with the green of the interior. He cleaned out the little fireplace, and filled it with bright pine chips and dry wood.

“Dere!” he said, surveying his work, “dat mor’ good; de leet’ vone she lak’ dees comme ça!” and tears came to the gray eyes. He brushed them away hurriedly, and went out to a tiny shed behind the hut. There he dug a quarter of caribou-meat from the snow, and carrying it back, he cut thick, juicy steaks; these he placed in a rough frying-pan, and set it on the table. From a hewn box he brought out a little bag of tea, some salt, and some hard bread. Then he drew the two stools up to the board. “Dere ees onlee two place’; la petite she vant place too!” Taking the axe, he went out, and in a few minutes had made a high stool; this he also put beside the table.

“Maintenant, Jules, go fin’ somme present for dose two for Noël.”

Outside it was snowing a little; the crisp flakes dropped gently through the trees, and the tops of the spruce bowed gracefully, swayed by the light north wind; they sighed, and murmured softly to one another. Jules put on his snow-shoes, drew the fur cap well down over his ears, and went off into the dull forest.

The skies turned a darker lead-colour; they seemed to threaten something, and Jules said to himself as he travelled along, “De snow she comme ver’ queeck!” and hastened on. Over hill and through valley he went till he came to his traps; luck was against him: trap after trap was empty and unsprung. He went all the way down this line, and not a skin! He looked up at the heavens: it was snowing as ever; the crystalline bits floated from their home in the clouds softly and noiselessly. There was no wind at all now, and Jules listened for something, he knew not what. Everything was silent; the spruce and pine stood like martyrs, bravely holding up the heavy masses of snow that the skies had poured on them. Sometimes a branch would rebel and drop its load with a _swish_; as it flew back, relieved, it seemed to jar on the stillness of everything, until it ceased its swaying and became quiet as the rest.

“Ah go to ligne five,” he decided, and changed his course to northeast. His way lay across wild barrens, and he stopped again to listen: the solitude was wonderful; only the unceasing, silent fall of snow. It came faster now, and the frost morsels covered Jules’s caribou jacket with a dainty white coat that rested lightly on the hairs, their prismatic forms plainly visible. He went on and on. “At las’!” he said as he came to the first trap on ligne five. A fine marten lay under the deadfall, its sleek hair smoothed close to the little frozen body; the eyes were open and stared glassily on Jules as he lifted the heavy stick and put the stiff form in his bag. “Merci, bon Dieu!” whispered Jules, as he found almost every trap with its little victim dead and frozen. The line led through a deep ravine, and Jules’s eyes gleamed when he came on a heavy trap. A big black fox lay dead in it; the massive log had crushed out the life God had given. On the crust were pitiful scratches where the poor beast had tried frantically to pull away from the awful weight that tortured it. “Ah-ha! Dat magnifique!” said Jules aloud, as he lifted the fall and drew out the long, sinuous body. The heavy black coat was glossy and thick; the under hair seemed to reflect darkly the faint light that came from the leaden skies. “La petite up dere”—Jules looked at the heavens as he spoke—“she ver’ content wid dees.” He turned, and started for home.

It was snowing harder, and his down tracks were only dimly discernible through the opaque cover over them. The wind was coming slowly; a murmur rose and fell weirdly in the forest; the trees moved, bowed to one another, and shook off their white dress. Out on the barrens the drift was whirling along, mingled with the fresh fall, and Jules’s snow-shoes clicked with a deadened sound as he hastened on. A herd of caribou crossed before him, their hoofs rattling faintly as they raced on with the wind. They came, and were gone in a few moments, wrapped in the clouds of snow-dust which their fast-moving feet stirred from its resting-place on the crust. Jules stopped at the edge of a timber patch, and examined marks at his feet, not long made. “Vone, deux, t’ree, five snow-shoe!” he said grimly, and swung off to the left. He went on carefully, listening every now and then; nothing but the whispering of the wind in the tree-tops answered his quest for sound. The hut was close by now; the tracks he had seen five miles back had disappeared, so Jules approached with a pathetic gladness in his heart. “Jules goin’ have Noël jus’ sam’!” he said, and then he sang a French Christmas song as he saw the clearing in the distance.

“Oh, Dieu! Oh, Dieu!” His little song died suddenly. He had reached the clearing where his hut had stood; in place of it a heap of smouldering ashes met his eyes—gray, dull-red, black, and smoking. Gone! All gone! The home camp, with its little Christmas trimmings, its strings of moss, its table, its pitiful high stool—all gone, and a mass of ashes remained in their place. Their smoke twined slowly upward into the trees and disappeared in the wide, wide air above. Silence—infinite silence! A faint spluttering now and then as the cold snow quenched the hot embers; beyond this stillness, solitude.

Jules stared with heavy eyes, a tearing pain at his heart, which beat thickly and fast. A split of pine caught his sight; on its white surface was roughly traced, “Bon Noël, Verbaux.—T.” That was all. Many intertracting snow-shoe tracks showed how the poor little home had been destroyed. An apathetic mood controlled Jules. He looked at the remnants of his Christmas shelter with drooping eyes. “Oh, Dieu! Bon Dieu!” he repeated over and over again. Then he changed swiftly; a blaze of anger came to the gray eyes, and his muscles heaved and surged under the caribou jacket. “Sacré-é-é-é!” he growled; then fury interrupted the words, and only inarticulate sounds came. “Jules Verbaux he goin’ show to you h’all vat he do for dees!”

He turned, and struck off rapidly to the westward. It was nearly night; the snow was coming fast, and the wind had increased in force, but Jules hurried on, seemingly imbued with a supernatural power; his strides were tremendous, and the clogging white on his snow-shoes did not affect him in the least. On in the darkness and falling curtains of snow he went; on over hill and across barren, the wind tearing at his clothes, and hurling the stinging drift in his face; on through the woods, where the trees roared their discomfort; on across lakes, where the ice was swept bare, and where his snow-shoes slid three feet to every stride; on in ravines, where the gale curled the flying snow over the sharp edges; on over ice-clumps, where the drift beat itself to tiny pieces on the jagged sides. The miles came, were passed, and fell behind. Jules travelled on tirelessly, like a steel machine, his snow-shoes rising, falling, rising, falling, ever and always in that long, regular step. Twenty, thirty, thirty-five miles had come and gone, but Jules sped on. Then daylight with its dim gray appeared, and broadened over the white wastes; the flakes came from farther up in the lowering skies, always whirling, racing down.

At last the post buildings stood before him, dimly visible through the screens of white; the flag was frozen to its mast, and crackled when the vicious blasts of wind sought to tear it from its hold. The post was awake, alive; blue smoke issued from the chimneys, and faded away in the grasp of the storm. The roofs were covered deep with a white coat, and the tepees outside the stockade were mounds of snow with only the tops of the poles visible. Jules went round the clearing, keeping under cover of the timber, and came up behind the store. Within all was gaiety and laughter; through the window-panes he saw the children and the women dancing about a little spruce tree, whose branches scintillated with Christmas candles, and beneath which were cakes and presents tied with coloured caribou-thongs. Tritou, Le Grand, Le Bossu, Dumois, old Maquette, and all the other trappers were there, standing in a circle round the tree. The factor, his red face shining with perspiration, was making speeches and giving presents to all.

“Jules goin’ feex you touts!” he snarled, and quickly gathered dry wood and limbs and piled them against the logs of the store wall; he went off, and brought other heaps, and placed them against all the post buildings, where the wind should catch the flames the best and hurry them on to their work of destruction. All was ready. Verbaux lighted a match and held it under the wood-heap at the store; the bit of pine flared and went out. He struck another; it too flashed, then the wind put out its feeble blaze.

Jules stopped, thought, and looked in the window again. The children were opening their parcels, and screaming with delight at the little toys and knickknacks that appeared. Gradually his eyes softened. “Ah had leetle papoose—vonce; she vould lak’ dat!” he said, and the tears came again to the deep eyes, and coursed unhindered down the bronzed cheeks. The snow fell against the panes, and dimmed his view of the interior, but the cheery Christmas candles shone blurredly through the mist.

“Ah no goin’ do dees!” he said huskily. “No hurrrt vomans an’ leetle vones; she vould not lak’ for me to do eet. Have good Noél, enfants! Mes petits, geeve merci to le bon Dieu. Somme taime, Tritou, Ah feex you! Ah, enfants, have plaisir; t’ink somme taime of Verbaux, h’alon’, seul, hongree, wid’out home, wid’out anyzing in de fores’ an’ la tempête.” He looked wistfully at the warm, happy scene within, then turned abruptly away and disappeared across the clearing silently, hidden by the ever-falling quantities of snow.

VII

“REMEMBER JULES!”

IT was noon. The day was bright and warm, and as Jules rested on a snow clump at the upper end of the Big Barren, he took off his muffler and fur cap and mopped his broad forehead. The sky was an opal blue; not a cloud to be seen anywhere above the horizon; the sun was comforting and genial in its heat, and the crust melted fast.

As Jules’s eyes roamed over the dazzling space, he saw whole hillsides split and sag deeply, the heavy melting snow sinking on the light, dry powder underneath. His great, wide snow-shoes were on his feet, and the fur tote-bag beside him bulged with pelts, for it had been a good morning at the traps. He looked up sharply, keenly, as a faint, far-away sound struck on his ever-listening ears—_Pop! pop! pop-pop!_ very distant, but plainly discernible. Jules jumped to his feet and shaded his eyes. Out of the snowy distance came a dozen black specks, travelling swiftly over the country. “Caribou! Feefteen! Somme vone mak’ shooting là-bas!” Soon the frightened animals were close to him, their heads thrown high, their little tails straight up, and their long legs twinkling as the herd sped by with even, graceful trot. One staggered a little, swayed, but kept on bravely with the rest. Jules’s sharp eyes saw the flecks of blood on its hind quarter.

“By gar! Ah get dat caribou!” he said aloud.

He threw the bag hastily over his shoulders, and stuck the muffler in a pocket; then, cap in hand, he left the clump and started off at great speed after the fleeing animals, which were again specks on the horizon beyond him.

Shortly afterward, from the white nothingness out of which the caribou had come, a larger speck appeared, and travelled nearly as fast as they had. It grew into a sledge and seven dogs, and on the sledge was a trapper named Lavalle. “Mush—ei-i!” his voice sounded weakly in space. As the outfit swung past the place where Jules had stopped, Lavalle caught sight of the wide tracks on the soft crust. He checked his dogs and tumbled from the sledge.

“C’est Verbaux,” he said to himself. “Les autres dey tol’ to me hees shoe-marrk, an’ dat’s eet certainement.”

He examined the tracks at his feet carefully. They were wide and short, and the toe-bar indentation was high on the front; the lacings were of broad, thick bands, as the trail plainly showed, and the front of the snow-shoe turned in slightly.

“Ah vould lak’ b’en to catch heem,” Lavalle said longingly, and walked up on the snow clump, looking about. “He ees gon’ ’way; mais Tritou he come aftaire me dam’ queeck, and to-mor’ ve go catch Verbaux,” he muttered. Then seeing the single dot disappearing to the northward, “Voilà mon woun’ caribou!” he cried, and, leaping down to the sledge, hurried the dogs on and forgot about Jules.

The team raced ahead across the softening snow; the sledge-runners sank in often with a scrunch, and Lavalle would lift the body up and then go on. As they passed over a rise in the barren he looked forward carefully, but saw nothing of the wounded caribou.

“He fall somme place not far,” he said to himself, and kept the dogs to their work. The country was more level here for several miles, and when the sledge approached the next hill he stopped the team at the foot of it, and, rifle in hand, stole noiselessly up the side; then, dropping to his hands and knees, crept on and peered over the top.

In the little gully on the other side lay a dead caribou, and bending over it was a tall man who was rapidly stripping the skin from the steaming body.

Lavalle ducked his head quickly at the unexpected sight in the gully, and lay on the snow, thinking.

“Dat ees Verbaux, certainement. Ah get heem et le caribou, by gar! Dat magnifique! Ah go leetle furdaire h’along, an’ mak’ good shoot.”

He slid down the hillside a few yards, then worked his way to the top again, pushing the rifle slowly along the crust. Just below him, Jules had finished the skinning, and was deftly unjointing the caribou’s quarters. Lavalle shoved the rifle carefully in front of his eyes, took aim between Verbaux’s broad shoulders, and pulled the trigger.

Jules heard a dull explosion, and dropped instantly by the caribou carcass; then, looking up slowly, he saw on the hilltop near by a man writhing and rolling as if in agony. He watched several minutes: the man’s contortions grew less; finally he lay spasmodically kicking.

“He try keel Jules,” said Verbaux, as he stood up and advanced warily toward the prostrate figure. It was no sham, and Jules uttered an exclamation of disgust at what he saw. Lavalle, in creeping along the hillside, had unwittingly plugged the rifle-barrel heavily with wet snow; and when, after taking aim at Jules, he had fired, the old barrel had exploded, and the breech-block had “blown back” in his face. The heavy bolt had torn away one cheek, and the raw flesh lay gaping on the jaw-bone; Lavalle’s forehead was pierced and gashed in several places by bits of the shell, and a jagged rip in the skull over the left temple showed where a piece of metal had forced its way through the skin. The gun itself lay a few feet off, dismantled and useless.

“Dat good so; you try keel me,” said Jules, thoughtfully, as he watched the twitchings of the torn and distorted features. “Jules go now.”

He turned and left the hill and its repulsive occupant. He cut strips from the caribou-hide, and with them fastened a quarter of meat on his back, and another over his chest, to balance the weight; then, taking the skin under his arm, he started off. When he had gone a little way he stopped and looked back at the shape lying on the reddened snow. He stood motionless for several minutes, then he threw off his load.

“Bah! Jules Verbaux, you got vone too beeg heart!” he said to himself sarcastically, as he went back to the wounded man. He tore long pieces from his own shirt, and skilfully laid the ragged flesh of the cheek in its place, fastening it there with the cloth; the slit in the skull he drew together with rough care, and pinned the flaps of loose skin with a bit of wood which he sharpened and cleaned with his knife for the purpose. Then he gently pricked out the steel pieces that he could see embedded in Lavalle’s face. The semi-conscious man moved, and muttered incoherently, “Ah go-in’ ke-e-el Ver-baux main-te-nant,” and he feebly threw up his arms as though holding a gun. The flesh around the eyes was so swollen that he could not open them, and he lay there whispering and tossing.

“’Ow he comme so queeck, hein?” thought Jules to himself; then he took Lavalle’s back trail and found the sledge; the dogs were asleep in a warm mass. He straightened their harness and drove the team up to the wounded man, picked him off the snow like a feather, and stretched him carefully on the boards of the sledge, lashing him securely. The dogs went on, Jules holding a trace so that the speed should not be too great. At the bottom of the hill he gathered the quarters of meat and the skin, and secured them on the sledge at Lavalle’s feet. Then “Mush! Allez!” he shouted, and the team scampered on, he following swiftly, controlling their speed by a long thong fastened to one of the sledge-runners. Over hill and across flat they went, hour after hour, till the forest-land was reached. Here Jules swerved the dogs to the northeast, and kept on.

Lavalle became more conscious, and struggled against the thongs that tied him fast; then he began to whimper, and the tears forced themselves through the puffed eyelids and ran down over his ears. Jules paid no attention, and they travelled on. The afternoon grew dark, a breeze sprang up, and in a little while veils of mist unfolded themselves over the barrens, and Jules pulled out his muffler, winding it round his neck as he strode along. The mist became heavier and changed into a chill rain that soaked rapidly through the wounded man’s clothes.

“Ah’m co-ol’, co-ol’!” he sobbed; and Jules took off his own caribou jacket, and covered Lavalle with it, tucking the corners under the lashings so that it should not be blown away.

The country sloped gradually upward, and at last the top of the long rise was reached. Jules stopped the team and looked back. The bare, rolling, white distances were blurred by the falling rain; the air was damp and had a bitter edge of cold to it; overhead masses of grey scud and blue-black clouds hurried past, and the wind yowled intermittently across the hilltop. Nothing living was in sight. Lavalle muttered and cried, and the dogs panted. Jules gazed long and thoroughly all over, then he started the team again, turning sharply to the right.

In an hour the timber came in view, and in a few minutes they plunged into its shadows. Soon a little clearing appeared, and in the centre of it was a hut. It looked lonely and minute, nestling among the giant spruce and pine. Jules halted the outfit at the door, and, gently untying Lavalle, he carried him inside and laid him on some boughs; the dogs he unharnessed and turned loose, and he took the meat, skin, and other things from the sledge into his little home. With pine chips and dry branches he built a fire on the tiny hearth; the slight smoke drifted about the room for a moment, then, feeling the strength of the draft through the round hole in the roof, it hurried out, as though glad to be free.

“L’eau! Wat’!” the wounded man was articulating painfully, and Jules filled a pannikin with snow, melted it over the flames, and held it to Lavalle’s lips. The sick man could not open them enough to drink, and he began to cry again. Jules took up a wind-cured pelt from a pile of skins, twisted it into a stiff horn, and carefully forced the small end between the bruised and cut lips, and poured in a thin stream of water. Lavalle’s throat rose and fell as he swallowed, and he shook his head a little when he had had enough. “Merci!” he whispered, and sank into semi-consciousness again.

It was dark outside. The dogs were growling and snapping over the meat Jules had thrown to them. The wind made the trees creak and groan, and the rain had turned to snow. It was growing colder, and when Jules opened the bark door a stinging blast whirled in, eddying the ashes about the fire and causing the wounded man in the corner to shiver.

Verbaux cut some caribou steaks, and set them in a frying-pan on the fire; he dropped a little tea in the pannikin, and built up the blaze; then he sat near it and waited. The fire shone on his face ruddily, and the flames leaped and danced by reflection in the gray eyes. The hut was quiet, save for the crackling of the pine sticks and the raucous breathing of Lavalle. Soon the steaks began sizzling, and the odour of frying meat filled the little interior. Outside the wind had increased, and it sirened now loud, now softly across the open hole overhead. Every now and then Jules mechanically turned the meat, his eyes on the fire in a curious set stare. Then he ate his supper slowly, decisively, sipping the black tea and munching the heavy bread in great mouthfuls, his big white teeth gleaming between the strong, healthy lips at each bite. When he had finished he set the pan aside, leaving the pannikin with its remnants of tea near the heat; he put more wood on the fire, and drew a blanket up to it, filled his pipe, lighted it, and sat down, nursing his knees in his hands, his head swaying to and fro. Lavalle’s breathing was more quiet and regular, and the loudest sound in the hut was the thick _puff-puff—puff-phooooo_—as Jules exhaled clouds of smoke.