Chapter 14

In the afternoon George took the lead, I followed, and Hubbard brought up the rear. Suddenly George stopped, dropped his pack, and drew Hubbard's pistol, which he carried because he was heading the procession. Hubbard and I also halted and dropped our packs. Into the brush George disappeared, and we heard, at short intervals, the pistol crack three times. Then George reappeared with three spruce-grouse. How our hearts bounded! How we took George's hand and pressed it, while his face lighted up with the old familiar grin! We fingered the birds to make sure they were good and fat. We turned them over and over and gloated over them. George plucked them at once that we might see their plump bodies. It is true we were not so very hungry, but those birds meant that we could travel just so much the farther.

We pushed on that we might make our night camp at the place where we had held the goose banquet on the 3d of August--that glorious night when we were so eager to proceed, when the northern lights illuminated the heavens and the lichens gleamed on the barren hill. Hubbard, I noticed, was lagging, and I told George quietly to set a slower pace. Then, to give Hubbard encouragement, I fell to the rear. The boy was staggering fearfully, and I watched him with increasing consternation. "We must get him out of here! We must! We must!" I kept saying to myself. The camping place was only two hundred yards away when he sank on the trail. I was at his side in a moment. He looked up at me with a pitiful smile, and spoke so low I could scarcely hear him.

"B'y, I've got to rest here--a little--just a little while...you understand...My legs--have given out."

"That's right, b'y, take a little rest," I said. "You'll be all right soon. But rest a little. I'll rest a bit with you; and then we'll leave your pack here, and you walk to camp light, and I'll come back for your pack."

In a few minutes he got bravely up. We left his pack and together walked slowly on to join George at the old goose camp on Goose Creek. Then I returned for the pack that had been left behind.

George boiled one of the grouse for supper. Hubbard told us he was not discouraged. His weakness, he said, was only momentary, and he was sure he would be quite himself in the morning, ready to continue the march homeward. After supper, as he was lying before the fire, he asked me, if I was not too tired, to read him the latter part of the sixth chapter of Matthew. I took the Book and read as he requested, closing with the words:

"Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to-day is, and to-morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith? Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. But seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you. Take therefore no thought for the morrow; for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof."

"How beautiful, how encouraging that is!" said Hubbard, as I put away the Book. He crawled into the tent to go to sleep. Then: "I'm so happy, b'y, so very, very happy to-night...for we're going home...we're going home." And he slept.

Before I lay down I wrote in my diary:

"Hubbard is in very bad shape--completely worn out physically and mentally--but withal a great hero, never complaining and always trying to cheer us up."

George said he was sick when he went to rest, and that added to my concern.

Friday morning (October 16th) came clear, mild, and beautiful. I was up at break of day to start the fire, and soon was followed by George and a little later by Hubbard. We all said we were feeling better. George shot a foolhardy whiskey jack that ventured too near the camp, and it went into the pot with a grouse for breakfast. The meal eaten, we all felt very much stronger, but decided that more outfit must be abandoned. I gave George my extra undershirt and a blue flannel shirt, both of which he donned. Every scrap we thought at the time we could do without, including many photograph films and George's blanket, was cached.

After Hubbard read aloud John xv, we resumed the struggle. Naturally George and I relieved Hubbard of everything he would permit us to. The fact was, we could not have taken much more and moved. When Hubbard broke down on the trail, it was strictly necessary for me to make two trips with the packs; although his weighed something less than ten pounds, I could not have carried it in addition to my own if my life had depended upon it.

Just below the place where Hubbard caught so many fish that day in August that we killed the geese, we stopped for a moment to rest. Hardly had we halted when George grabbed Hubbard's rifle, exclaiming, "Deer!" About four hundred yards below us, a magnificent caribou, his head held high, dashed across the stream and into the bush. He was on our lee and had winded us. No shot was fired. One fleeting glance, and he was gone. Our feelings can be imagined. His capture would have secured our safety.

We struggled on. At midday we ate our last grouse. At this stopping place George abandoned his waterproof camp bag and his personal effects that he might be able to carry Hubbard's rifle. This relieved Hubbard of seven pounds, but he again failed before we reached our night camp. It was like the previous evening. With jaws set he tottered grimly on until his legs refused to carry him farther, and he sank to the ground. Again I helped him into camp, and returned for his pack.

We pitched the tent facing a big rock so that the heat from the fire, blazing between, might be reflected into the tent, the front of which was thrown wide open. Of course George and I did all the camp work. Fortunately there was not much to do; our camps being pitched on the sites of previous ones, we had stakes ready to hand for the tent, and in this part of the country we were able to find branches and logs that we could burn without cutting. We still had one axe with us, but neither George nor I had the strength to swing it.

The night was cold and damp. For supper we had another piece of the caribou hide, and water from the much-boiled bones with what I believed was the last of the pea meal--about two spoonfuls that Hubbard shook into the pot from the package, which he then threw away. As we reclined in the open front of the tent before the fire, I again read from the Bible, and again a feeling of religious exaltation came to Hubbard. "I'm so happy, and oh! so sleepy," he murmured, and was quiet. He did not make his usual entry in his diary. In my own diary for this date I find:

"Hubbard's condition is pitiable, but he bears himself like the hero that he is--trying always to cheer and encourage us. He is visibly failing. His voice is very weak and low. I fear he will break down at every step. O God, what can we do! How can we save him!"

On Saturday (October 17th) threatening clouds overcast the sky, and a raw wind was blowing. It penetrated our rags and set us a-shiver. At dawn we had more water from the bones and more of the hide. Cold and utterly miserable, we forced our way along. Our progress was becoming slower and slower. But every step was taking us nearer home, we said, and with that thought we encouraged ourselves. At noon we came upon our first camp above the Susan River. There George picked up one of our old flour bags. A few lumps of mouldy flour were clinging to it, and he scraped them carefully into the pot to give a little substance to the bone water. We also found a box with a bit of baking powder still in it. The powder was streaked with rust from the tin, but we ate it all.

Then Hubbard made a find--a box nearly half full of pasty mustard. After we had each eaten a mouthful, George put the remainder in the pot. He was about to throw the box away when Hubbard asked that it be returned to him. Hubbard took the box and sat holding it in his hand.

"That box came from Congers," he said, as if in a reverie. "It came from my home in Congers. Mina has had this very box in her hands. It came from the little grocery store where I've been so often. Mina handed it to me before I left home. She said the mustard might be useful for plasters. We've eaten it instead. I wonder where my girl is now. I wonder when I'll see her again. Yes, she had that very box in her hands-in her hands! She's been such a good wife to me."

Slowly he bent his head, and the tears trickled down his cheeks.

George and I turned away.

It was near night when we reached the point near the junction of the Susan River and Goose Creek where we were to cross the river to what had been our last camping ground in the awful valley, and which was to prove our last camp in Labrador. Hubbard staggered along during the afternoon with the greatest difficulty, and finally again sank to the ground, completely exhausted. George took his pack across the river. While he crouched there on the trail, Hubbard's face bore an expression of absolute despair. At length I helped him to his feet, and in silence we forded the shallow stream.

Our camp was made a short distance below the junction of the streams, among the fir trees a little way from the river bank. Here and there through the forest were numerous large rocks. Before one of these we pitched the tent, with the front of it open to receive the heat from the fire as it was reflected from the rock. More bone water and hide served us for supper, with the addition of a yeast cake from a package George had carried throughout the trip and never used. Huddling in the front of the tent, we counselled.

"Well, boys," said Hubbard, "I'm busted. I can't go any farther--that's plain. I can't go any farther. We've got to do something."

In the silence the crackling of the logs became pronounced.

"George," Hubbard continued, "maybe you had better try to reach Blake's camp, and send in help if you're strong enough to get there. If you find a cache, and don't find Blake, try to get back with some of the grub. There's that old bag with a little flour in it--you might find that. And then the milk powder and the lard farther down. Maybe Wallace could go with you as far as the flour and bring back a little of it here. What do you say, b'y?"

"I say it's well," I answered. "We've got to do something at once."

"It's the only thing to do," said George. "I'm willin', and I'll do the best I can to find Blake and get help."

"Then," said Hubbard, "you'd better start in the morning, boys. If you don't find the bag, you'd better go on with George, Wallace; for then there would be no use of your trying to get back here. Yes, boys, you'd better start in the morning. I'll be quite comfortable here alone until help comes."

"I'll come back, flour or no flour," I said, dreading the thought of his staying there alone in the wilderness.

We planned it all before Hubbard went to sleep. George and I, when we started in the morning, were to carry as little as possible. I thought I should be able to reach the flour bag and be back within three days. We were to prepare for Hubbard a supply of wood, and leave him everything on hand that might be called food--the bones and the remainder of the hide, a sack with some lumps of flour sticking to it that I had recovered at this camp, and the rest of the yeast cakes. George and I were to depend solely on the chance of finding game.

"I'm much relieved now," said Hubbard, when it had all been settled. "I feel happy and contented. I feel that our troubles are about ended. I am very, very happy and contented."

He lay down in his blanket. After a little he said: "B'y, I'm rather chilly; won't you make the fire a little bigger."

I threw on more wood, and when I sat down I told him I should keep the fire going all night; for the air was damp and chill.

"Oh, thank you, b'y," he murmured, "thank you. You're so good." After another silence, the words came faintly: "B'y, won't you read to me those two chapters we've had before?--the fourteenth of John and the thirteenth of First Corinthians... I'd like to hear them again, b'y... I'm very... sleepy... but I want to hear you read before... I go... to sleep."

Leaning over so that the light of the fire might shine on the Book, I turned to the fourteenth of John and began: "'Let not your heart be troubled'" I paused to glance at Hubbard. He was asleep. Like a weary child, he had fallen asleep with the first words. The dancing flames lit up his poor, haggard, brown face; but upon it now there was no look of suffering; it was radiant with peace.

George lay by his side, also asleep. Thus I began a night of weary vigil and foreboding. My heart was heavy with a presentiment of something dreadful. In the forest beyond the fire the darkness was intense. There was a restless stir among the fir tops; then a weary, weary sighing. The wind had arisen. I dozed. But what was that! I sat suddenly erect.

On the canvas above me sounded a patter, patter, patter. Rain!

Gradually the real and the seeming became blended. Beyond the fire-glow, on the edge of the black pall of night, horrid shapes began to gather. They leered at me, and mocked me, and oh! they were telling me something dreadful was going to happen. A sudden jerk, and I sat up and stared wildly about me. Nothing but the sighing tree-tops, and the patter, patter, patter of the rain. The fire had died down. I struggled to my feet, and threw on more wood.

Again the horrid shapes leered at me from out the gloom. Then I heard myself exclaiming, "No, no, no!" The nameless dread was strong upon me. I listened intently for Hubbard's breathing. Had it ceased? I crawled over and peered long and anxiously at his face--his face which was so spectral and wan in the uncertain firelight. Twice I did this. A confused sense of things evil and malicious, a confused sense of sighing wind and pattering rain, a confused sense of starts and jerks and struggles with wood, and the night wore on.

The black slowly faded into drab. The trees, dripping with moisture, gradually took shape. The day of our parting had come.

XVII. THE PARTING

It was a drizzling rain, and the sombre clouds hung low in the sky. The wind appeared to be steadily increasing. The day was Sunday, October 18th. Presently George sat up, rubbed his eyes and gazed about him for a moment in bewilderment.

"Mornin', Wallace," he said, when he had collected his senses, "that blamed rain will make the travellin' hard, won't it?"

He tied the pieces of blanket to his feet, and started for the river to get a kettle of water with which to reboil the bones. The movement aroused Hubbard, and he, too, sat up.

"How's the weather, b'y?" he asked.

"It makes me think of Longfellow's 'Rainy Day,"' I replied. "'The day is cold, and dark, and dreary.'"

"Yes," he quickly returned; "but

"'Be still, sad heart, and cease repining; Behind the clouds is the sun still shining.'"

I looked at him with admiration.

"Hubbard," I exclaimed, "you're a wonder! You've a way of making our worst troubles seem light. I've been sitting here imagining all sorts things."

"There's no call to worry, by," he smilingly said; "we'll soon have grub now, and then we can rest and sleep--and get strong."

He arose from his blanket, and walked out of the tent to look at the sky. Slowly he returned, and sank wearily down.

"I'm feeling stronger and better than I did last night," he said; "but I'm too weak to walk or stand up long."

When our breakfast of bones and hide boiled with a yeast cake was ready, he sat up in the tent to receive his share. While drinking the water and chewing the hide, we again carefully considered how long it should take George to reach Grand Lake, and how long it would be before help could arrive, if he were able to obtain any, and how long it would require me to reach the flour and return. It was, roughly speaking, forty miles to Grand Lake, and fifteen miles to the flour.

That there was room for doubt as to whether my strength would carry me to the flour and back again, we all recognised; and we fully realised, that if George failed to reach Grand Lake, or, reaching there, failed to find Blake or Blake's cache, our doom would be sealed; but so long had death been staring us in the face that it had ceased to have for us any terror. It was agreed, however, that each man should do his best to live as long as possible. I told Hubbard I should do my utmost to be back in three days, even if I did not find the flour.

Hubbard remained seated in the front of the tent while George and I went about gathering a supply of wood that we thought should last him until someone returned. George also brought a kettle of water from the river, and thoughtfully placed it near the fire for Hubbard's use in boiling the bones and hide, all of which we left with him together with the yeast and some tea. I also turned over to him the pair of blankets he had delivered to me at Halifax--the birthday gift from my sisters.

These preparations for Hubbard's comfort completed, George and I returned to the tent to arrange the kits we were to take with us. Hubbard sat in the middle of the tent towards the rear; George and I on either side of him in the front. Hubbard gave George his pistol and compass, and I had my own pistol and compass. The pistols we fastened to our belts along with a sheath knife and tin cup. Having a case for my compass, I wore it also on my belt; George placed his in his pocket. Each of us had half a blanket, this to be our only covering at night. George placed his half, together with a tea pail and some tea, in the waterproof bag he had been using to carry food. This bag he bound with a pack strap, leaving a loop to sling over his shoulder. I also bound my half a blanket with a pack strap, thinking as I did so that I soon might want to eat the strap. And then, when George and I had filled our waterproof boxes with wax taper matches, and placed a handful of pistol cartridges in our pockets, we were ready to start.

At this point I suggested it might be well for each man to make a note of such disposition as he desired made of his effects. George made an entry in his note book, and asked Hubbard to write when we were gone a letter to Mr. King, the Hudson's Bay Company's agent at Missanabie, in reference to his (George's) affairs at that post. I then made the last entry in my diary, and with it wrote what I believed might be a last message to my sisters and my friend and associate in business, Mr. Alonzo G. McLaughlin. I put the diary with my other papers in my camp bag, and placed the bag in the rear of the tent, where the note Hubbard was to write for George was also to be placed; we believed that if worst came to worst the tent was more likely to be found than our bodies down on the trail. Hubbard had been watching us silently while we did these things, and now he said:

"Wallace, if you get out of this, and I don't, you'll have to write the story of the trip."

I expressed some doubt as to my ability, but he made me promise I would do the best I could. I also promised, at his request, that if I survived him I should place his diary in his wife's hands.

"Thank you, b'y," he said. "And now before you leave me won't you read to me again?--I want to hear that fourteenth chapter of John and the thirteenth of First Corinthians. I fell asleep last night while you were reading, I was so tired. I'm sleepy now, very sleepy; but I'll keep awake this time while you read."

I got my testament from my camp bag and read both chapters through, noting as I read that the look of happiness and peace was returning to Hubbard's poor, wan face. When I had finished, he said quietly:

"Thank you, b'y, thank you very much. Isn't that comforting?--'Let not your heart be troubled.' It makes me feel good. I've faith that we'll all be saved. I'm not worried. McLean was caught just as we are. He sent a man for help and got out all right. God will send us help, too."

"Yes," said I, "and we shall soon be safe home."

"We'll soon be safe home" repeated Hubbard--"safe home. How happy that makes me feel!"

It was time for George and me to go. But I could not say good-bye just yet. I turned my back to Hubbard and faced the fire. The tears were welling up into my eyes, and I struggled for self-control. George sat silent, too, and his face was strangely drawn. For a full ten minutes we sat silently gazing into the fire. Finally George arose.

"Well, Wallace, we'd better start now."

"Yes," I said; "we'd better start."

I collected myself as best I could, and, turning to Hubbard, held out my hand.

"Good-bye, b'y; I'll be back soon." And then, as I looked into his poor, wistful eyes, I broke down and sobbed.

I crawled over to him, and put my arm about him. I kissed his cheek, and he kissed my cheek. We embraced each other, and for a moment held our faces close together. Then I drew away.

George was crying, too. The dear fellow went over to Hubbard, stooped and kissed his cheek.

"With God's help, I'll save you, Hubbard!"

Hubbard kissed his cheek, and they embraced.

George slung his bundle on his shoulder, and I took up mine. We turned to go. But I had to return. I stooped and again kissed Hubbard's cheek, and he again kissed mine. He was quite calm--had been calm throughout. Only his eyes shone with that look of wistful longing.

"Good-bye, boys, and God be with you!"

"Good-bye!"

"Good-bye!"

And George and I left him. About twenty yards away I turned for a last look at the tent. Hubbard evidently had immediately lain down; for he was not to be seen. All I saw was the little peak of balloon silk that had been our home for so many weeks, the fire blazing between it and the big rock, the kettle of water by the fire, and the white moss and the dripping wet fir trees all about.

* * * * *

Some one hundred and fifty yards farther on George and I forded a brook, after which our course was through closely-grown, diminutive fir trees until we came to a series of low, barren knolls. On these knolls we found some mossberries. Then we pushed on. It was dreadfully slow travelling. The wind was in the east, and was rising. The drizzling rain had become a downpour, and it was dashed into our faces in sheets. The cold was increasing. Our hands were stiff and numb. Somewhat after midday George threw down his pack. "We'll have a spell [rest] and a cup of tea to warm us up," he said.

I did not protest. The previous night had been a trying one, and I was very tired. We drew together some wood. With his sheath-knife George whittled some shavings, and a fire was soon blazing. When the kettle had been placed over the fire to boil, George drew out of his bag a package--yes, it was a half-pound package of pea meal! At first I could not believe my eyes, and I stood stupidly staring as George prepared to stir some of it into the kettle. At length I found my tongue.

"George," I cried indignantly, "where did you get that pea meal?"

"Hubbard gave it to me this morning while you were gettin' wood," he answered promptly.

"But why did you take it?

"He made me take it. I didn't want to, but he said I must. He said we'd be workin' hard, and we'd need it, and if we didn't have somethin' to eat, we couldn't travel far and couldn't get help to him. We ought to have it as much for his sake as for ours, he said, and I had to take it from him to make him feel right."