Chapter 2

As soon as attention was drawn from him Micmac John, unobserved, slipped out of the door and a few moments later placed some things in a canoe that had been turned over on the beach, launched it and paddled away in the ghostly light of the rising moon.

The dancing continued until eleven o'clock, then the men lit their pipes, and after a short smoke and chat rolled into their blankets upon the floor, Mrs. Black and the girls retired to the bunks, and, save for a long, weird howl that now and again came from the wolf dogs outside, and the cheery crackling of the stove within, not a sound disturbed the silence of the night.

As has been intimated, Douglas Campbell was a man of importance in Eskimo Bay. When a young fellow he had come here from the Orkney Islands as a servant of the Hudson's Bay Company. A few years later he married a native girl, and then left the company's service to become a hunter.

He had been careful of his wages, and as he blazed new hunting trails into the wilderness, used his savings to purchase steel traps with which to stock the trails. Other trappers, too poor to buy traps for themselves, were glad to hunt on shares the trails Douglas made, and now he was reaping a good income from them. He was in fact the richest man in the Bay.

He was kind, generous and fatherly. The people of the Bay looked up to him and came to him when they were in trouble, for his advice and help. Many a poor family had Douglas Campbell's flour barrel saved from starvation in a bad winter, and God knows bad winters come often enough on the Labrador. Many an ambitious youngster had he started in life, as he was starting Bob Gray now.

The Big Hill trail, far up the Grand River, was the newest and deepest in the wilderness of all the trails Douglas owned--deeper in the wilderness than that of any other hunter. Just below it and adjoining it was William Campbell's--a son of Douglas--a young man of nineteen who had made his first winter's hunt the year before our story begins; below that, Dick Blake's, and below Dick's was Ed Matheson's.

In preparing for the winter hunt it was more convenient for these men to take their supplies to their tilts by boat up the Grand River than to haul them in on toboggans on the spring ice, as nearly every other hunter, whose trapping ground was not upon so good a waterway, was compelled to do, and so it was that they were now at the trading post selecting their outfits preparatory to starting inland before the very cold winter should bind the river in its icy shackles.

The men were up early in the morning, and Douglas went with Bob to the office of Mr. Charles McDonald, the factor, where it was arranged that Bob should be given on credit such provisions and goods as he needed for his winter's hunt, to be paid for with fur when he returned in the spring. Douglas gave his verbal promise to assume the debt should Bob's catch of fur be insufficient to enable him to pay it, but Bob's reputation for energy and honesty was so good that Mr. McDonald said he had no fear as to the payment by the lad himself.

The provisions that Bob selected in the store, or shop, as they called it, were chiefly flour, a small bag of hardtack, fat pork, tea, molasses, baking soda and a little coarse salt, while powder, shot, bullets, gun caps, matches, a small axe and clothing completed the outfit. He already had a gray cotton wedge-tent. When these things were selected and put aside, Douglas bought a pipe and some plugs of black tobacco, and presented them to Bob as a gift from himself.

"But I never smokes, sir, an' I 'lows he'd be makin' me sick," said Bob, as he fingered the pipe.

"Just a wee bit when you tries t' get acquainted," answered Douglas with a chuckle, "just a wee bit; but ye'll come t' he soon enough an' right good company ye'll find he of a long evenin'. Take un along, an' there's no harm done if ye don't smoke un--but ye'll be makin' good friends wi' un soon enough."

So Bob pocketed the pipe and packed the tobacco carefully away with his purchases.

After a consultation it was decided that the men should all meet the next evening, which would be Sunday, at Bob's home at Wolf Bight, near the mouth of the Grand River, and from there make an early start on Monday morning for their trapping grounds. "I'll have William over wi' one o' my boats that's big enough for all hands," said Douglas. "No use takin' more'n one boat. It's easier workin' one than two over the portages an' up the rapids."

When Bob's punt was loaded and he was ready to start for home, he ran to the kitchen to say good-bye to Mrs. Black and the girls, for he was not to see them again for many months.

"Bide in th' tilt when it storms, Bob, an' have a care for the wolves, an' keep clear o' th' Nascaupees," warned Bessie as she shook Bob's hand.

"Aye," said he. "I'll bide in th' tilt o' stormy days, an' not go handy t' th' Nascaupees. I'm not fearful o' th' wolves, for they's always so afraid they never gives un a chance for a shot."

"But _do_ have a care, Bob. An'--an'--I wants to tell you how glad I is o' your good luck, an' I hopes you'll make a grand hunt--I _knows_ you will. An'--Bob, we'll miss you th' winter."

"Thank you, Bessie. An' I'll think o' th' fine time I'm missin' at Christmas an' th' New Year. Good-bye, Bessie."

"Good-bye, Bob."

The fifteen miles across the Bay to Wolf Bight with a fair wind was soon run. Bob ate a late dinner, and then made everything snug for the journey. His flour was put into small, convenient sacks, his cooking utensils consisting of a frying pan, a tin pail in which to make tea, a tin cup and a spoon were placed in a canvas bag by themselves, and in another bag was packed a Hudson's Bay Company four-point blanket, two suits of underwear, a pair of buckskin mittens with a pair of duffel ones inside them, and an extra piece of the duffel for an emergency, six pairs of knit woollen socks, four pairs of duffel socks or slippers (which his mother had made for him out of heavy blanket-like woollen cloth), three pairs of buckskin moccasins for the winter and an extra pair of sealskin boots (long legged moccasins) for wet weather in the spring.

He also laid aside, for daily use on the journey, an adikey made of heavy white woollen cloth, with a fur trimmed hood, and a lighter one, to be worn outside of the other, and made of gray cotton. The adikey or "dikey," as Bob called it, was a seamless garment to be drawn on over the head and worn instead of a coat. The underclothing and knit socks had been purchased at the trading post, but every other article of clothing, including boots, moccasins and mitts, his mother had made.

A pair of snow-shoes, a file for sharpening axes, a "wedge" tent of gray cotton cloth and a sheet iron tent stove about twelve inches square and eighteen inches long with a few lengths of pipe placed inside of it were likewise put in readiness. The stove and pipe Bob's father had manufactured.

No packing was left to be done Sunday, for though there was no church to go to, the Grays, and for that matter all of the Bay people, were close observers of the Sabbath, and left no work to be done on that day that could be done at any other time.

Early on Sunday evening, Dick and Ed and Bill Campbell came over in their boat from Kenemish, where they had spent the previous night. It had been a short day for Bob, the shortest it seemed to him he had ever known, for though he was anxious to be away and try his mettle with the wilderness, these were the last hours for many long weary months that he should have at home with his father and mother and Emily. How the child clung to him! She kept him by her side the livelong day, and held his hand as though she were afraid that he would slip away from her. She stroked his cheek and told him how proud she was of her big brother, and warned him over and over again,

"Now, Bob, do be wonderful careful an' not go handy t' th' Nascaupees for they be dreadful men, fierce an' murderous."

Over and over again they planned the great things they would do when he came back with a big lot of fur--as they were both quite sure he would--and how she would go away to the doctor's to be made well and strong again as she used to be and the romps they were to have when that happy time came.

"An' Bob," said Emily, "every night before I goes to sleep when I says my 'Now I lay me down to sleep' prayer, I'll say to God 'an' keep Bob out o' danger an' bring he home safe.'"

"Aye, Emily," answered Bob, "an' I'll say to God, 'Make Emily fine an' strong again.'"

Before daybreak on Monday morning breakfast was eaten, and the boat loaded for a start at dawn. Emily was not yet awake when the time came to say farewell and Bob kissed her as she slept. Poor Mrs. Gray could not restrain the tears, and Bob felt a great choking in his throat--but he swallowed it bravely.

"Don't be feelin' bad, mother. I'm t' be rare careful in th' bush, and you'll see me well and hearty wi' a fine hunt, wi' th' open water," said he, as he kissed her.

"I knows you'll be careful, an' I'll try not t' worry, but I has a forebodin' o' somethin' t' happen--somethin' that's t' happen t' you, Bob--oh, I feels that somethin's t' happen. Emily'll be missin' you dreadful, Bob. An'--'twill be sore lonesome for your father an' me without our boy."

"Ready, Bob!" shouted Dick from the boat.

"Don't forget your prayers, lad, an' remember that your mother's prayin' for you every mornin' an' every night."

"Yes, mother, I'll remember all you said."

She watched him from the door as he walked down to the shore with his father, and the boat, heavily laden, pushed out into the Bay, and she watched still, until it disappeared around the point, above. Then she turned back into the room and had a good cry before she went about her work again.

If she had known what those distant hills held for her boy--if her intuition had been knowledge--she would never have let him go.

III

AN ADVENTURE WITH A BEAR

The boat turned out into the broad channel and into Goose Bay. There was little or no wind, and when the sun broke gloriously over the white-capped peaks of the Mealy Mountains it shone upon a sea as smooth as a mill pond, with scarcely a ripple to disturb it. The men worked laboriously and silently at their oars. A harbour seal pushed its head above the water, looked at the toiling men curiously for a moment, then disappeared below the surface, leaving an eddy where it had been. Gulls soared overhead, their white wings and bodies looking very pure and beautiful in the sunlight. High in the air a flock of ducks passed to the southward. From somewhere in the distance came the honk of a wild goose. The air was laden with the scent of the great forest of spruce and balsam fir, whose dark green barrier came down from the rock-bound, hazy hills in the distance to the very water's edge, where tamarack groves, turned yellow by the early frosts, reflected the sunlight like settings of rich gold.

"'Tis fine! 'tis grand!" exclaimed Bob at last, as he rested a moment on his oars to drink in the scene and breathe deeply the rare, fragrant atmosphere. "'Tis sure a fine world we're in."

"Aye, 'tis fine enough now," remarked Ed, stopping to cut pieces from a plug of tobacco, and then cramming them into his pipe. "But," he continued, prophetically, as he struck a match and held it between his hands for the sulphur to burn off, "bide a bit, an' you'll find it ugly enough when th' snows blow t' smother ye, an' yer racquets sink with ye t' yer knees, and th' frost freezes yer face and the ice sticks t' yer very eyelashes until ye can't see--then," continued he, puffing vigorously at his pipe, "then 'tis a sorry world--aye, a sorry an' a hard world for folks t' make a livin' in."

It was mid-forenoon when they reached Rabbit Island--a small wooded island where the passing dog drivers always stop in winter to make tea and snatch a mouthful of hard biscuit while the dogs have a half hour's rest.

"An' here we'll boil th' kettle," suggested Dick. "I'm fair starved with an early breakfast and the pull at the oars."

"We're ready enough for that," assented Bill. "Th' wind's prickin' up a bit from th' east'rd, an' when we starts I thinks we may hoist the sails."

"Yes, th' wind's prickin' up an' we'll have a fair breeze t' help us past th' Traverspine, I hopes."

The landing was made. Bob and Ed each took an axe to cut into suitable lengths some of the plentiful dead wood lying right to hand, while Dick whittled some shavings and started the fire. Bill brought a kettle (a tin pail) of water. Then he cut a green sapling about five feet in length, sharpened one end of it, and stuck it firmly into the earth, slanting the upper end into position over the fire. On this he hung the kettle of water, so that the blaze shot up around it. In a little while the water boiled, and with a stick for a lifter he set it on the ground and threw in a handful of tea. This they sweetened with molasses and drank out of tin cups while they munched hardtack.

Bill's prophecy as to the wind proved a true one, and in the half hour while they were at their luncheon so good a breeze had sprang up that when they left Rabbit Island both sails were hoisted.

Early in the afternoon they passed the Traverspine River, and now with some current to oppose made slower, though with the fair wind, good progress, and when the sun dipped behind the western hills and they halted to make their night camp they were ten miles above the Traverspine.

To men accustomed to travelling in the bush, camp is quickly made. The country here was well wooded, and the forest beneath covered with a thick carpet of white moss. Bob and Bill selected two trees between which they stretched the ridge pole of a tent, and a few moments sufficed to cut pegs and pin down the canvas. Then spruce boughs were broken and spread over the damp moss and their shelter was ready for occupancy. Meanwhile Ed had cut fire-wood while Dick started the fire, using for kindlings a handful of dry, dead sprigs from the branches of a spruce tree, and by the time Bob and Bill had the tent pitched it was blazing cheerily, and the appetizing smell of fried pork and hot tea was in the air. When supper was cooked Ed threw on some more sticks, for the evening was frosty, and then they sat down to luxuriate in its genial warmth and eat their simple meal.

For an hour they chatted, while the fire burned low, casting a narrowing circle of light upon the black wilderness surrounding the little camp. Some wild thing of the forest stole noiselessly to the edge of the outer darkness, its eyes shining like two balls of fire, then it quietly slunk away unobserved. Above the fir tops the blue dome of heaven seemed very near and the million stars that glittered there almost close enough to pluck from their azure setting. With a weird, uncanny light the aurora flashed its changing colours restlessly across the sky. No sound save the low voices of the men as they talked, disturbed the great silence of the wilderness.

Many a time had Bob camped and hunted with his father near the coast, in the forest to the south of Wolf Bight, but he had never been far from home and with this his first long journey into the interior, a new world and new life were opening to him. The solitude had never impressed him before as it did now. The smoke of the camp-fire and the perfume of the forest had never smelled so sweet. The romance of the trail was working its way into his soul, and to him the land seemed filled with wonderful things that he was to search out and uncover for himself. The harrowing tales that the men were telling of winter storms and narrow escapes from wild animals had no terror for him. He only looked forward to meeting and conquering these obstacles for himself. Young blood loves adventure, and Bob's blood was strong and red and active.

When the fire died away and only a heap of glowing red coals remained, Dick knocked the ashes from his pipe, and rising with a yawn, suggested:

"I 'lows it's time t' turn in. We'll have t' be movin' early in th' mornin' an' we makes th' Muskrat Portage."

Then they went to the tent and rolled into their blankets and were soon sleeping as only men can sleep who breathe the pure, free air of God's great out-of-doors.

Before noon the next day they reached the Muskrat Falls, where the torrent, with a great roar, pours down seventy feet over the solid rocks. An Indian portage trail leads around the falls and meets the river again half a mile farther up. At its beginning it ascends a steep incline two hundred feet, then it runs away, comparatively level, to its upper end where it drops abruptly to the water's edge. To pull a heavy boat up this incline and over the half mile to the launching place above, was no small undertaking.

Everything was unloaded, the craft brought ashore, and ropes which were carried for the purpose attached to the bow. Then round sticks of wood, for rollers, were placed under it, and while Dick and Ed hauled, Bob and Bill pushed and lifted and kept the rollers straight. In this manner, with infinite labour, it was worked to the top of the hill and step by step hauled over the portage to the place where it was to enter the water again. It was nearly sunset when they completed their task and turned back to bring up their things from below.

They had retraced their steps but a few yards when Dick, who was ahead, darted off to the left of the trail with the exclamation:

"An' here's some fresh meat for supper."

It was a porcupine lumbering awkwardly away. He easily killed it with a stick, and picking it up by its tail, was about to turn back into the trail when a fresh axe cutting caught his eye.

"Now who's been here, lads?" said he, looking at it closely. "None o' th' planters has been inside of th' Traverspine, an' no Mountaineers has left th' post yet."

The others joined him and scrutinized the cutting, then looked for other human signs. Near by they found the charred wood of a recent fire and some spruce boughs that had served for a bed within a day or two, which was proved by their freshly broken ends. It had been the couch of a single man.

"Micmac John, sure!" said Ed.

"An' what's he doin' here?" asked Bill. "He has no traps or huntin' grounds handy t' this."

"I'm thinkin' 'tis no good he's after," said Dick. "'Tis sure he, an' he'll be givin' us trouble, stealin' our fur an' maybe worse. But if _I_ gets hold o' he, he'll be sorry for his meddlin', if meddlin' he's after, an' it's sure all he's here for."

They hurried back to pitch camp, and when the fire was made the porcupine was thrown upon the blaze, and allowed to remain there until its quills and hair were scorched to a cinder. Then Dick, who superintended the cooking, pulled it out, scraped it and dressed it. On either side of the fire he drove a stake and across the tops of these stakes tied a cross pole. From the centre of this pole the porcupine was suspended by a string, so that it hung low and near enough to the fire to roast nicely, while it was twirled around on the string. It was soon sending out a delicious odour, and in an hour was quite done, and ready to be served. A dainty morsel it was to the hungry voyageurs, resembling in some respects roast pig, and every scrap of it they devoured.

The next morning all the goods were carried over the portage, and a wearisome fight began against the current of the river, which was so swift above this point as to preclude sailing or even rowing. A rope was tied to the bow of the boat and on this three of the men hauled, while the other stood in the craft and with a pole kept it clear of rocks and other obstructions. For several days this method of travel continued--tracking it is called. Sometimes the men were forced along the sides of almost perpendicular banks, often they waded in the water and frequently met obstacles like projecting cliffs, around which they passed with the greatest difficulty.

At the Porcupine Rapids everything was lashed securely into the boat, as a precaution in case of accident, but they overcame the rapid without mishap, and finally they reached Gull Island Lake, a broadening of the river in safety, and were able to resume their oars again. It was a great relief after the long siege of tracking, and Ed voiced the feelings of all in the remark:

"Pullin' at th' oars is hard when ye has nothin' harder t' do, but trackin's so much harder, pullin' seems easy alongside un."

"Aye," said Dick, "th' thing a man's doin's always the hardest work un ever done. 'Tis because ye forgets how hard th' things is that ye've done afore."

"An' it's just the same in winter. When a frosty spell comes folks thinks 'tis th' frostiest time they ever knew. If '_twere_, th' winters, I 'lows'd be gettin' so cold folks couldn't stand un. I recollects one frosty spell----"

"Now none o' yer yarns, Ed. Th' Lord'll be strikin' ye dead in His anger _some day_ when ye're tellin' what ain't so."

"I tells no yarns as ain't so, an' I can prove un all--leastways I could a proved this un, only it so happens as I were alone. As I was sayin', 'twere so cold one night last winter that when I was boilin' o' my kettle an' left th' door o' th' tilt open for a bit while I steps outside, th' wind blowin' in on th' kettle all th' time hits th' steam at th' spout--an' what does ye think I sees when I comes in?"

"Ye sees steam, o' course, an' what else could ye see, now?"

"'Twere so cold--that wind--blowin' right on th' spout where th' steam comes out, when I comes in I looks an' I can't believe what I sees myself. Well, now, I sees th' steam froze solid, an' a string o' ice hangin' from th' spout right down t' th' floor o' th' tilt, an' th' kettle boilin' merry all th' time. That's what I sees, an'----"

"Now stop yer lyin', Ed. Ye knows no un----"

"A bear! A bear!" interrupted Bob, excitedly. "See un! See un there comin' straight to that rock!"

Sure enough, a couple Of hundred yards away a big black bear was lumbering right down towards them, and if it kept its course would pass a large boulder standing some fifty yards back from the river bank. The animal had not seen the boat nor scented the men, for the wind was blowing from it towards them.

"Run her in here," said Bob, indicating a bit of bank out of the bear's range of vision, "an' let me ashore t' have a chance at un."

The instant the boat touched land he grabbed his gun--a single-barrelled, muzzle loader--bounded noiselessly ashore, and stooping low gained the shelter of the boulder unobserved.

The unsuspecting bear came leisurely on, bent, no doubt, upon securing a drink of water to wash down a feast of blueberries of which it had just partaken, and seemingly occupied by the pleasant reveries that follow a good meal and go with a full stomach. Bob could hear it coming now, and raised his gun ready to give it the load the moment it passed the rock. Then, suddenly, he remembered that he had loaded the gun that morning with shot, when hunting a flock of partridges, and had failed to reload with ball. To kill a bear with a partridge load of shot was out of the question, and to wound the bear at close quarters was dangerous, for a wounded bear with its enemy within reach is pretty sure to retaliate.

Just at the instant this thought flashed through Bob's mind the big black side of the bear appeared not ten feet from the muzzle of his gun, and before the lad realized it he had pulled the trigger.

Bob did not stop to see the result of the shot, but ran at full speed towards the boat. The bear gave an angry growl, and for a moment bit at the wound in its side, then in a rage took after him.