Chapter 13

ON THE TOTE-ROAD

Very early in the morning on the day of the storm which had been welcomed by the lumber-jacks of the Blood River camp, old Wabishke started over his trap-line.

The air was heavy with the promise of snow, and one by one the Indian took up his traps and hung them in saplings that they might not be buried.

After the storm, with the Northland lying silent under its mantle of white, and the comings and goings of the fur-bearers recorded in patterns of curious tracery, Wabishke would again fare forth upon the trap-line.

With wise eyes and the cunning of long practice, he would read the sign in the snow, and by means of craftily concealed iron jaws and innocent appearing deadfalls, renew with increased confidence in his "winter set," the world-old battle of skill against instinct.

On the crest of a low ridge at the edge of the old chopping where Moncrossen's new Blood River tote-road made a narrow lane in the forest, the Indian paused.

In the stump-dotted clearing, indistinct in the sullen dimness of the overcast dawn, rotted the buildings of the abandoned log-camp. From one of these smoke rose. Wabishke decided to investigate, for in the Northland no smallest detail may pass unaccounted for. Swiftly he descended the ridge and, gliding silently into the aftergrowth of spindling saplings that reared their sickly heads among the stumps, gained the rear of the shack. Noiselessly he advanced, and, peering between the unchinked logs, surveyed the interior.

A man sat upon the floor near the stove and laboriously applied bandages to his blistered feet. Near by was a new pack-sack against which leaned a pair of new high-laced boots toward which the man shot wrathful glances as he worked.

"_Chechako_," muttered the Indian, and passed around to the door.

A popular-fiction Indian would have glided stealthily into the shack and, with becoming dignity, have remarked "How."

But Wabishke was just a common Indian--one of the everyday kind, that may be seen any time hanging about the trading-posts of the North-country--unimaginative, undignified--dirty. So he knocked loudly upon the door and waited.

"Come in!" called Carmody, and gazed in surprise at the newcomer, who stared back at him without speaking. Wabishke advanced to the stove, and, fumbling in the pocket of his disreputable mackinaw, produced a very old and black cob-pipe, which he gravely extended toward the other.

"No, thanks!" said Bill hastily. "Got one of my own."

He eyed with disfavor the short, thick stem, about the end of which was wound a bit of filthy rag, which served as a mouthpiece for the grip of the yellow fangs which angled crookedly at the place where a portion of the lip had been torn away in some long-forgotten combat of the wilds.

"T'bacco," grunted the visitor, with a greasy distortion of the features which passed for a smile.

"Oh, that's it? Well, here you are."

Carmody produced a bright-colored tin box, which he handed to the Indian, who squatted upon his heels and regarded its exterior in thoughtful silence for many minutes, turning it over and over in his hand and subjecting every mark and detail of its lettered surface to a minute scrutiny.

Finally with a grunt he raised the lid and contemplated the tobacco, which was packed evenly in thin slices.

He stared long and curiously at his own distorted image, which was reflected from the unpainted tin of the inside of the cover, felt cautiously of the paraffined paper, and, raising the box to his nose, sniffed noisily at the contents.

Apparently satisfied, he removed a dozen or more of the slices and ground them slowly between the palms of his hands. This done, he rammed possibly one-tenth of the mass into the bowl of his ancient pipe and carefully conveyed the remainder to his pocket.

"Match?" he asked. And Bill passed over his monogrammed silver match-box, which received its share of careful examination, evidently, however, not meeting the approval accorded the gaudy tobacco-box.

The Indian abstracted about one-half of the matches, which he transferred to the pocket containing the tobacco. Then, calmly selecting a dry twig from the pile of firewood, thrust the end through a hole in the broken stove, and after much noisy puffing at length succeeded in igniting the tightly tamped tobacco in his pipe-bowl.

"Thank you," said Bill, contemplating his few remaining matches. "You're a bashful soul, aren't you? Did you ever serve a term in the Legislature?"

The Indian's command of English did not include a word Bill had uttered; nevertheless, his mangled lip writhed about the pipe-stem in grotesque grin.

"Boots!" he grunted, eying the bandaged feet. "No good!" and he complacently wriggled the toes in his own soft moccasins. Bill noted the movement, and a sudden desire obsessed him to possess at any cost those same soft moccasins.

Wabishke, like most Indians, was a born trader, and he was quick to note the covetous glance that the white _chechako_ cast toward his footgear.

"Will you sell those?" asked Bill, pointing toward the moccasins. The Indian regarded them thoughtfully, and again the toes wriggled comfortably beneath the pliable moose-skin covering. Bill tried again.

"How much?" he asked, touching the moccasins with his finger.

The Indian pondered the question through many puffs of his short pipe. He pointed to the new boots, and when Bill handed them to him he carefully studied every stitch and nail of each. Finally he laid them aside and pointed to the tobacco-box, which he again scrutinized and laid with the boots.

"Match," he said.

"Get a light from the fire like you did before, you old fraud! I only have a few left."

"Match," repeated the Indian, and Bill passed over his match-box, which was placed with the other items. Wabishke pointed toward the pack-sack.

"Look here, you red Yankee!" exclaimed Bill. "Do you want my whole outfit for those things?"

The other merely shrugged and pointed first at the bandaged feet, and then at the boots. One by one, a can of salmon, a sheath-knife, and a blue flannel shirt were added to the pile, and still Wabishke seemed unsatisfied.

While the Indian pawed over the various articles of his pack, Bill found time to put the finished touches on his bandages, and, reaching under the table, drew forth the whisky bottle and poured part of its contents upon the strips of cloth.

At the sight of the bottle the Indian's eyes brightened, and he reached for it quickly. Bill shook his head and set the bottle well out of his reach.

"Me drink," the other insisted, and again Bill shook his head. The Indian seemed puzzled.

"No like?" he asked.

"No like," repeated Bill, and smiled grimly.

Wabishke regarded him in wondering silence. In his life he had seen many strange things, but never a thing like this--a white man who of his own choice drank spring-water from a fish-can and poured good whisky upon his feet!

The Indian's eyes wandered from the pile of goods to the bottle, in which about one-fourth of the contents remained, and realized that he was at a disadvantage, for he knew by experience that a white man and his whisky are hard to part.

Selecting the can of salmon from the pile, he shoved it toward the man, who again shook his head. Then followed the match-box, the sheath-knife, and the shirt, until only the tobacco-box and the boots remained, and still the man shook his head.

Slowly the tobacco-box was handed back, and the Indian was eying the boots. Bill laughed.

"No. You'll need those. Just hand over the moccasins, and you are welcome to the boots and the booze."

The Indian hastily untied the thongs, and the white man thrust his bandaged feet into the soft comfort of the mooseskin moccasins. A few minutes later he took the trail, following the windings of Moncrossen's new tote-road into the North.

The air was filled with a light, feathery snow, and, in spite of the ache of his stiffened muscles, he laughed.

"The first bottle of whisky _I_ ever entered on the right side of the ledger," he said aloud--and again he laughed.

He was in the big timber now. The tall, straight pines of the Appleton holdings stretched away for a hundred miles, and formed a high wall on either side of the tote-road, which bent to the contour of ridge and swamp and crossed small creeks on rough log bridges or corduroy causeways.

Gradually the stiffness left him, and his aching muscles limbered to their work. His moccasins sank noiselessly into the soft snow as mile after mile he traversed the broad ribbon of white.

At noon he camped, and over a tiny fire thawed out his bread and warmed his salmon, which he washed down with copious drafts of snow-water. Then he filled his pipe and blew great lungfuls of fragrant smoke into the air as he rested with his back against a giant pine and watched the fall of the snow.

During the last hour the character of the storm had changed. Cold, dry pellets, hissing earthward had replaced the aimless dance of the feathery flakes, and he could make out but dimly the opposite wall of the rod-wide tote-road.

He returned the remains of his luncheon to his pack, eying with disgust the heel of the loaf of hard bread and the soggy, red mass of sock-eye that remained in the can.

"The first man that mentions canned salmon to me," he growled, "is going to get _hurt_!"

The snow was ankle-deep when he again took the trail and lowered his head to the sting of the wind-driven particles. On and on he plodded, lifting his feet higher as the snow deepened. As yet, in his ignorance of woodcraft, no thought of danger entered his mind. "It is harder work, that is all," he thought; but, had he known it, his was a situation that no woodsman wise in the ways of the winter trails would have cared to face.

During the morning he had covered but fifteen of the forty miles which lay between the old shack and Moncrossen's camp. Each minute added to the difficulties of the journey, which, in the words of Daddy Dunnigan was "a fine two walks for a good man," and, with the added hardship of a heavy snowfall, would have been a man's-sized job for the best of them equipped, as they would have been, with good grub and snowshoes.

Bill was forced to rest frequently. Not only were his softened muscles feeling the strain--it was getting his wind, this steady bucking the snow--but each time he again faced the storm and plowed doggedly northward.

Darkness found him struggling knee-deep in the cold whiteness, and, as he paused to rest in the shelter of a pile of tops left by the axe-men, the foremost of the gray shadows that for the last two hours had dogged his footsteps, phantom-like, resolved itself into a very tangible pair of wicked eyes which smoldered in greenish points of hate above a very sharp, fang-studded muzzle, from which a long, red tongue licked suggestively at back-curled lips.