Part 37

He had got a silver fox, a beautifully marked silver fox, the best luck of Labrador! One goes for years without one, in hope, and when it comes, it pays the trapper's debts, it clears his life--for years!

They tried poor inadequate congratulation....

As they sat about the fire that night a silence came upon Louis Napoleon. It was manifest that his mind was preoccupied. He got up, walked about, inspected the miracle of fur that had happened to him, returned, regarded them. "'M'm," he said, and stroked his chin with his forefinger. A certain diffidence and yet a certain dignity of assurance mingled in his manner. It wasn't so much a doubt of his own correctness as of some possible ignorance of the finer shades on their part that might embarrass him. He coughed a curt preface, and intimated he had a request to make. Behind the Indian calm of his face glowed tremendous feeling, like the light of a foundry furnace shining through chinks in the door. He spoke in a small flat voice, exercising great self-control. His wish, he said, in view of all that had happened, was a little thing.... This was nearly a perfect day for him, and one thing only remained.... "Well," he said, and hung. "Well," said Trafford. He plunged. Just simply this. Would they give him the brandy bottle and let him get drunk? Mr. Grenfell was a good man, a very good man, but he had made brandy dear--dear beyond the reach of common men altogether--along the coast....

He explained, dear bundle of clothes and dirt! that he was always perfectly respectable when he was drunk.

Sec. 5

It seemed strange to Trafford that now that Marjorie was going home, a wild impatience to see her children should possess her. So long as it had been probable that they would stay out their year in Labrador, that separation had seemed mainly a sentimental trouble; now at times it was like an animal craving. She would talk of them for hours at a stretch, and when she was not talking he could see her eyes fixed ahead, and knew that she was anticipating a meeting. And for the first time it seemed the idea of possible misadventure troubled her....

They reached Hammond's in one and twenty days from Lonely Hut, three days they had been forced to camp because of a blizzard, and three because Louis Napoleon was rigidly Sabbatarian. They parted from him reluctantly, and the next day Hammond's produced its dogs, twelve stout but extremely hungry dogs, and sent the Traffords on to the Green River pulp-mills, where there were good beds and a copious supply of hot water. Thence they went to Manivikovik, and thence the new Marconi station sent their inquiries home, inquiries that were answered next day with matter-of-fact brevity: "Everyone well, love from all."

When the operator hurried with that to Marjorie she received it off-handedly, glanced at it carelessly, asked him to smoke, remarked that wireless telegraphy was a wonderful thing, and then, in the midst of some unfinished commonplace about the temperature, broke down and wept wildly and uncontrollably....

Sec. 6

Then came the long, wonderful ride southward day after day along the coast to Port Dupre, a ride from headland to headland across the frozen bays behind long teams of straining, furry dogs, that leapt and yelped as they ran. Sometimes over the land the brutes shirked and loitered and called for the whip; they were a quarrelsome crew to keep waiting; but across the sea-ice they went like the wind, and downhill the komatic chased their waving tails. The sledges swayed and leapt depressions, and shot athwart icy stretches. The Traffords, spectacled and wrapped to their noses, had all the sensations then of hunting an unknown quarry behind a pack of wolves. The snow blazed under the sun, out to sea beyond the ice the water glittered, and it wasn't so much air they breathed as a sort of joyous hunger.

One day their teams insisted upon racing.

Marjorie's team was the heavier, her driver more skillful, and her sledge the lighter, and she led in that wild chase from start to finish, but ever and again Trafford made wild spurts that brought him almost level. Once, as he came alongside, she heard him laughing joyously.

"Marjorie," he shouted, "d'you remember? Old donkey cart?"

Her team yawed away, and as he swept near again, behind his pack of whimpering, straining, furious dogs, she heard him shouting, "You know, that old cart! Under the overhanging trees! So thick and green they met overhead! You know! When you and I had our first talk together! In the lane. It wasn't so fast as this, eh?"...

Sec. 7

At Port Dupre they stayed ten days--days that Marjorie could only make tolerable by knitting absurd garments for the children (her knitting was atrocious), and then one afternoon they heard the gun of the _Grenfell_, the new winter steamer from St. John's, signalling as it came in through the fog, very slowly, from that great wasteful world of men and women beyond the seaward grey.

THE END

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Transcriber's Notes:

Obvious punctuation and hyphenation inconsistencies have been silently repaired. Words with variable spelling have been retained. The following spelling and typographical emendations have been made:

p. 22: broken text "were they living and moving realities" was completed to "were they living and moving realities when those others were at home again?" p. 34: protruberant replaced with protuberant ("large protuberant") p. 38: pay replaced with play ("what the play was") p. 40: Majorie replaced with Marjorie ("Marjorie loved singing") p. 40: feut replaced with felt ("that he felt") p. 60: tete-a-tete replaced with tete-a-tete ("silent tete-a-tete") p. 70: foundamental replaced with fundamental ("three fundamental things") p. 76: fina replaced with final ("working for her final") p. 88: challenege replaced with challenge ("challenge inattentive auditors") p. 92: presumbly replaced with presumably ("presumably Billy's") p. 115: ino replaced with into ("into the air") p. 141: himse_f replaced with himself ("ask himself") p. 147: contradication replaced with contradiction ("any sort of contradiction") p. 167: calcalculated replaced with calculated ("indeed calculated") p. 223: hestitated replaced with hesitated ("She hesitated") p. 230: intriques replaced with intrigues ("culminations and intrigues") p. 242: America replaced with American ("American minor poet") p. 265: acquiscent replaced with acquiescent ("by no means acquiescent") p. 313: It's replaced with Its ("Its end was the Agenda Club") p. 316: regime replaced with regime ("the new regime") p. 341: number of section 15 replaced with 16 p. 342: gestulated replaced with gesticulated ("Solomonson gesticulated") p. 342: The paragraphs starting with: "It was all" and "You said good-bye" were merged p. 346: The paragraphs starting with: "They aren't arranged" and "They'd get everything" were merged p. 349: devine replaced with divine ("by right divine of genius") p. 368: presumptious replaced with presumptuous ("extremely presumptuous") p. 376: mispelling replaced with misspelling ("as much misspelling as") p. 376: The replaced with They ("They gave dinners") p. 378: The replaced with They ("They could play") p. 395: Docter replaced with Doctor ("Doctor Codger") p. 396: authoritive replaced with authoritative ("authoritative imagine") p. 399: shuldered replaced with shouldered ("As he shouldered") p. 403: wet replaced with went ("Trafford's eyes went from") p. 405: subthe replaced with subtle ("skilful, subtle appreciation") p. 426: fine replaced with find ("find God") p. 427: chidren replaced with children ("of having children at all") p. 441: serere replaced with serene ("brightly serene") p. 442: tundura replaced with tundra ("wide stretches of tundra") p. 457: rucksac replaced with rucksack ("chunks of dry paper, the rucksack") p. 481: realties replaced with realities ("expression of the realities") p. 485: the duplicate phrase "He stared at her" was removed p. 493: think replaced with thing ("salvation is a collective thing") p. 504: realty replaced with reality ("of sense and reality") p. 509: greal replaced with great ("a great lump") p. 512: caluclated replaced with calculated ("now they calculated") p. 515: travellel replaced with travelled ("I had travelled") p. 518: gutteral replaced with guttural ("seemed guttural") p. 520: gutteral replaced with guttural ("his voice was guttural") p. 524: slaughers replaced with slaughters ("he finds and slaughters")