Chapter 9

It was not an easy task to get the carcass out of the rock crevice, but he finally accomplished it and outside quickly skinned the bear and cut the meat into pieces of convenient size to haul away on a toboggan when he should return for it. Then, with the skin as a trophy, he triumphantly turned towards camp.

Night had fallen when he reached the wigwam and Sishetakushin and Mookoomahn had already arrived after their day's hunt. It was a proud moment for Bob when he entered the lodge and threw down the bear skin for their inspection. They spread it out and examined it, and a great deal of talking ensued. Bob, in the best Indian he could command, explained where he had found the "mushku" and how he had killed it, and his story was listened to with intense interest. When he was through Sishetakushin said that the "Snow Brother," as they called Bob, was a great hunter, and should be an Indian; for only an Indian would have the courage to attack a bear in its den single handed. Bob had risen very perceptibly in their estimation. All doubt of his skill and prowess as a hunter had been removed. He had won a new place, and was now to be considered as their equal in the chase.

The following morning the two Indians assisted Bob to haul the bear's meat to camp. No part of it was allowed to waste. In the wigwam it was thawed and then the flesh stripped from the bones, and that not required for immediate use was permitted to freeze again that it might keep sweet until needed. The skull was thoroughly cleaned and fastened to a high branch of a tree as an offering to the Manitou. Sishetakushin explained to Bob that unless this was done the Great Spirit would punish them by driving all other bears beyond the reach of their guns and traps in future.

For several days a storm had been threatening, and that night it broke with all the terrifying fury of the north. The wind shrieked through the forest and shook the wigwam as though it would tear it away. The air was filled with a swirling, blinding mass of snow and any one venturing a dozen paces from the lodge could hardly have found his way back to it again. For three days the storm lasted, and the Indians turned these three days into a period of feasting. A big kettle of bear's meat always hung over the fire, and surrounding it pieces of the meat were impaled upon sticks to roast. It seemed to Bob as though the Indians would never have enough to eat.

Finally the storm cleared, and then it was discovered that the ptarmigans and rabbits, which had been so plentiful and constituted their chief source of food supply, had disappeared as if by magic. Not a ptarmigan fluttered before the hunter, and no rabbit tracks broke the smooth white snow beneath the bushes.

The jerked venison was gone and the only food remaining was the bear meat. A hurried consultation was held, and it was decided to push on still farther to the northward in the hope of meeting the invisible herds of caribou that somewhere in those limitless, frozen barrens were wandering unmolested.

XVI

ONE OF THE TRIBE

If Bob Gray had held any secret hope that the Indians would eventually listen to his plea to guide him back to the Big Hill trail it was mercilessly swept away by the next move, for again they faced steadily towards the north. Whenever he thought of home a lump came into his throat, but he always swallowed it bravely and said to himself:

"'Tis wrong now t' be grievin' when I has so much t' be thankful for. Bill'll be takin' th' silver fox an' other fur out, and when father sells un 'twill pay for Emily's goin' t' th' doctor. Th' Lard saved me from freezin', an' I'm well an' th' Injuns be wonderful good t' me. Maybe some time they'll be goin' back th' Big Hill way--maybe 'twill be next winter--an' then I'll be gettin' home."

In this manner the hope of youth always conquered, and his desperate situation was to some extent forgotten in the pictures he drew for himself of his reunion with the loved ones in the uncertain "Sometime" of the future.

On and on they travelled through the endless, boundless white, over wind-swept rocky hills so inhospitably barren that even the snow could not find a lodgment on them, or over wide plains where the few trees that grew had been stunted and gnarled into mere shrubs by winter blasts. On every hand the mountains began to raise their ragged austere heads like grim giant sentinels placed there to guard the way. Finally they turned into a pass, which brought them, on the other side of the ridge it led through, to a comparatively well-wooded valley down which a wide river wound its way northward. The trees were larger than any Bob had seen since leaving the Big Hill trail, and this new valley seemed almost familiar to him.

As they emerged from the pass a wolf cry, long and weird, came from a distant mountainside and broke the wilderness stillness, which had become almost insufferable, and to the lad even this wild cry held a note of companionship that was pleasant to hear after the long and deathlike quiet that had prevailed.

They took to the river ice and travelled on it for several miles when, rounding a bend, they suddenly came upon a cluster of half a dozen deerskin wigwams standing in the spruce trees just above the river bank. An Indian from one of the lodges discovered their approach, and gave a shout. Instantly men, women and children sprang into view and came running out to welcome them. It was a curious, medley crowd. The men were clad in long, decorated deerskin coats such as Sishetakushin and Mookoomahn wore, and the women in deerskin skirts reaching a little way below the knees, and all wearing the fringed buckskin leggings.

The greeting was cordial and noisy, everybody shaking hands with the new arrivals, talking in the high key characteristic of them, and laughing a great deal. Two of the men embraced Sishetakushin and Mookoomahn and shed copious tears of joy over them. These two men it appeared were Mookoomahn's brothers. The women were not so demonstrative, but showed their delight in a ceaseless flow of words.

When the first greetings were over Sishetakushin told the assembled Indians how Bob had been found sleeping in the snow, and that the Great Spirit had sent the White Snow Brother to dwell in their lodges as one of them. After this introduction and a rather magnified description of his accomplishments as a hunter they all shook Bob's hand and welcomed him as one of the tribe.

A few caribou had been killed, and the travellers received gifts of the frozen meat with a good proportion of fat, and that night a great feast was held in their behalf.

With plenty to eat there was no occasion to hunt and the Indians were living in idleness during the intensely cold months of January and February, rarely venturing out of the wigwams. This was not only for their comfort, but because the fur bearing animals lie quiet during this cold period of the winter and the hunt would therefore yield small reward for the exposure and suffering it would entail.

They had an abundance of tobacco and tea. Sishetakushin and his family had been without these luxuries, and it seemed to Bob that he had never tasted anything half so delicious as the first cup of tea he drank. His Indian friends could not understand at first his refusal of their proffered gifts of "stemmo"--tobacco--but he told them finally that it would make him sick, and then they accepted his excuse and laughed at him good naturedly.

Manikawan had never ceased her attentions to Bob, and the others of her family seemed to have come to an understanding that it was her especial duty to look after his comfort. From the first she had been much troubled that he had only his cloth adikey instead of a deerskin coat such as her father and Mookoomahn wore, and she often expressed her regret that there was no deerskin with which to make him one. He insisted at these times that his adikey was quite warm enough, but she always shook her head in dissent, for she could not believe it, and would say,

"No, the Snow Brother is cold. Manikawan will make him warm clothes when the deer are found."

On the very night of their arrival at the camp she went amongst the wigwams and begged from the women some skins of the fall killing, tanned with the hair on, with the flesh side as fine and white and soft as chamois. In two days she had manufactured these into a coat and had it ready for decoration. It was a very handsome garment, sewn with sinew instead of thread, and having a hood attached to it similar to the hoods worn by Sishetakushin and Mookoomahn.

With brushes made from pointed sticks she painted around the bottom of the coat a foot-wide border in intricate design, introducing red, blue, brown and yellow colours that she had compounded herself the previous summer from fish roe, minerals and oil. Other decorations and ornamentations were drawn upon the front and arms of the garment before she considered it quite complete. Then she surveyed her work with commendable pride, and with a great show of satisfaction presented it and a pair of the regulation buckskin leggings to Bob. She was quite delighted when he put his new clothes on, and made no secret of her admiration of his improved appearance.

"Now," she said, "the brother is dressed as becomes him and looks very fine and brave."

"'Tis fine an' warm," Bob assented, "an' I'm thinkin' I'm lookin' like an Injun sure enough."

Bob's aversion to Manikawan's attentions was wearing off, and he was taking a new interest in her. He very often found himself looking at her and admiring her dark, pretty face and tall, supple form. Sometimes she would glance up quickly and catch him at it, and smile, for it pleased her. Then he would feel a bit foolish and blush through the tan on his face; for he knew that she read his thoughts. But neither he nor Manikawan ever voiced the admiration that they felt for each other.

Bob was lounging in the wigwam one day a week or so after the arrival at the camp when he heard some one excitedly shouting,

"Atuk! Atuk!"

He grabbed his gun and ran outside where he met Sishetakushin rushing in from an adjoining wigwam. The Indian called to him to leave his gun behind and get a spear and follow. He could see that something of great moment had occurred and he obeyed.

The Indians from the lodges, all armed with spears, were running towards a knoll just below the camp, and Bob and Sishetakushin and Mookoomahn joined them. When they reached the top of the knoll Bob halted for a moment in astonishment. Never before had he beheld anything to compare with what he saw below. A herd of caribou containing hundreds--yes thousands--like a great living sea, was moving to the eastward.

Some of the Indians were already running ahead on their snow-shoes to turn the animals into the deep snowdrifts of a ravine, while the other attacked the herd with their spears from the side. The caribou changed their course when they saw their enemies, and plunged into the ravine, those behind crowding those in front, which sank into the drifts until they were quite helpless. From every side the Indians rushed upon the deer and the slaughter began. Bob was carried away with the excitement of the hunt, and many of the deer fell beneath his spear thrusts. The killing went on blindly, indiscriminately, without regard to the age or sex or number killed, until finally the main herd extricated itself and ran in wild panic over the river ice and out of reach of the pursuers.

In the brief interval between the discovery of the deer and the escape of the herd over four hundred animals had fallen under the ruthless spears. When Bob realized the extent of the wicked slaughter he was disgusted with himself for having taken part in it.

"'Twas wicked t' kill so many of un when we're not needin' un, an' I hopes th' Lard'll forgive me for helpin'," he said contritely.

Aside from the inhumanity of the thing, it was a terrible waste of food, for it would only be possible to utilize a comparatively small proportion of the meat of the slaughtered animals. Perhaps seventy-five of the carcasses were skinned, after which the flesh was stripped from the bones and hung in thin slabs from the poles inside the wigwams to dry. The tongues were removed from all the slaughtered animals, for they are considered a great delicacy by the Indians; and some of the leg bones were taken for the marrow they contained. The great bulk of the meat, however, was left for the wolves and foxes, or to rot in the sun when summer came.

The deer killing was followed by a season of feasting, as is always the case amongst the Indians after a successful hunt. In every wigwam a kettle of stewing venison was constantly hanging, night and day over the fire, and marrow bones roasting in the coals, and for several days the men did nothing but eat and smoke and drink tea.

It was, however, a busy time for the women. Besides curing the meat and tongues, they rendered marrow grease from the bones and put it up neatly in bladders for future use; and it fell to their lot, also, to dress and tan the hides into buckskin.

The passing deer herds brought in their wake packs of big gray and black timber wolves, and the country was soon infested with these animals. At night their howls were heard, and they came boldly to the scene of the caribou slaughter and fattened upon the discarded carcasses of the animals. Now and again one was shot. With plenty to eat, they were, however, comparatively harmless, and never molested the camp.

February was drawing to a close when one day Sishetakushin, Mookoomahn and two other Indians packed their toboggans preparatory to going on an excursion. Bob noticed the preparations with interest, and inquired the meaning of them.

"The tea and tobacco are nearly gone, and we are in need of powder and ball," Sishetakushin answered.

To get these things Bob knew they must go to a trading post, and here, he decided, was a possible opportunity for him to find a means of reaching home. He asked the Indians at once for permission to accompany them. There was no objection to this from any of them, though they told him it would be a tiresome journey, that they would travel fast, and be back in a few days.

But Bob did not propose to let any chance of meeting white men pass him, and he hurriedly got his things together for the expedition. He had no intimation of the name or location of the post they were going to further than that the Indians told him they were going to Mr. MacPherson, who was, he felt sure, a Hudson's Bay Company Factor, and he believed that if he could once reach one of the company's forts a way would be shown him to get to Eskimo Bay. That night was one of excitement and anticipation for Bob.

Manikawan seemed to read his thoughts, for the whole evening she looked troubled, and her eyes were wet when Bob said good-bye to her in the morning. As the little party turned down upon the river ice, he looked back once and saw her standing near the wigwam, in the bright moonlight, her slender figure outlined against the snow, and he waved his hand to her.

He never knew that for many days afterwards, when the dusk of evening came, she stole alone out of the wigwam and down the trail where he had disappeared to watch for his return, nor how lonely she was and how she brooded over his loss when she knew that she should never see her White Brother of the Snow again.

XVII

STILL FARTHER NORTH

Bob and the Indians travelled in single file, with Mookoomahn leading, and kept to the wide, smooth pathway that marked the place where the river lay imprisoned beneath ice a fathom thick. The wind had swept away the loose snow and beaten down that which remained into a hard and compact mass upon the frozen river bed, making snow-shoeing here much easier than in the spruce forest that lay behind the willow brush along the banks. The Indians walked with the long rapid stride that is peculiar to them, and which the white man finds hard to simulate, and good traveller though he was Bob had to adopt a half run to keep their pace. They drew but two lightly loaded toboggans, and unencumbered by the wigwam and other heavy camp equipment, and with no trailing squaws to hamper their speed, an even, unbroken gait was maintained as mile after mile slipped behind them.

Not a breath of air was stirring, and the absolute quiet that prevailed was broken only by the moving men and the rhythmic creak, creak of the snow-shoes as they came in contact with the hard packed snow.

The very atmosphere seemed frozen, so intense was the cold. The moon like a disk of burnished silver set in a steel blue sky cast a weird, metallic light over the congealed wilderness. The hoar frost that lay upon the bushes along the river bank sparkled like filmy draperies of spun silver, and transformed the bushes into an unearthly multitude of shining spirits that had gathered there from the dark, mysterious forest which lay behind them, to watch the passing strangers. Presently the light of dawn began to diffuse itself upon the world, and the spirit creations were replaced by substantial banks of frost-encrusted willows. In a little while the sun peeped timorously over the eastern hills, but, half obscured by a haze of frost flakes which hung suspended in the air, gave out no warmth to the frozen earth.

No halt was made until noon. Then a fire was built and a kettle of ice was melted and tea brewed. Bob was hungry, and the jerked venison, with its delicate nutty flavour, and the hot tea, were delicious. The latter, poured boiling from the kettle, left a sediment of ice in the bottom of the tin cup before it was drained, so great was the cold.

After an hour's rest they hit the trail again and never relaxed their speed for a moment until sunset. Then they sought the shelter of the spruce woods behind the river bank, and in a convenient spot for a fire cleared a circular space, several feet in circumference, by shovelling the snow back with their snow-shoes, forming a high bank around their bivouac as a protection from the wind, should it rise. At one side a fire was built, and in front of the fire a thick bed of boughs spread. While the others were engaged in these preparations Bob and Sishetakushin cut a supply of wood for the night.

It was quite dark before they all settled themselves around the fire for supper. Two frying pans were now produced, and from a haunch of venison, frozen as hard as a block of wood, thin chips were cut with an axe, and with ample pieces of fat were soon sizzling in the pans and filling the air with an appetizing odour, and in spite of the bleak surroundings the place assumed a degree of comfort and hospitality.

After supper the Indians squatted around the fire on deerskins spread upon the boughs, smoking their pipes and telling stories, while Bob reclined upon the soft robes that Manikawan had thoughtfully provided him with, watching the light play over their dark faces framed in long black hair, and thought of the Indian girl and wondered if he was always to live amongst them, and if he would ever become accustomed to their wild, rude life.

Finally they lay down close together, with their feet towards the fire, and wrapped their heads and shoulders closely in the skins, leaving their moccasined feet uncovered, to be warmed by the blaze, and the lad was soon lost in dreams of the snug cabin at Wolf Bight. Once during the night he awoke and arose to replenish the fire. The stars were looking down upon them, cold and distant, and the wilderness seemed very solemn and quiet when he resumed his place amongst the sleeping Indians.

They were on their way again by moonlight the following morning. Shortly after daybreak they turned out of the river bed and towards noon came upon some snow-shoe tracks. A little later they passed a steel trap, in which a white arctic fox straggled for freedom. They halted a moment for Sishetakushin to press his knee upon its side to kill it and then went on. The fox he left in the trap, however, for the hunter to whom it belonged. This was the first steel trap that Bob had seen since coming amongst the Indians and he drew from its presence here that they must be approaching a trading station where traps were obtainable and in use by the hunters.

In the middle of the afternoon they turned into a komatik track, and Bob's heart gave a bound of joy.

"Sure we're gettin' handy t' th' coast!" he exclaimed.

They would soon find white men, he was sure. The track led them on for a mile or so, and then they heard a dog's howl and a moment later came out upon two snow igloos. Eskimo men, women, and children emerged on their hands and knees from the low, snow-tunnel entrance of the igloos at their approach, but when they saw that the travellers were a party of Indians, gave no invitation to them to enter, and said nothing until Bob called "Oksunie" to them--a word of greeting that he had learned from the Bay folk. Then they called to him "Oksunie, oksunie," and began to talk amongst themselves.

"They're rare wild lookin' huskies," thought Bob.

As much as Bob would have liked to stop, he did not do so, for the Indians stalked past at a rapid pace, never by word or look showing that they had seen the igloos or the Eskimos.

These new people, particularly the women, who wore trousers and carried babies in large hoods hanging on their backs, did not dress like any Eskimos that Bob had ever seen before. Nor had he ever before seen the snow houses, though he had heard of them and knew what they were. The dogs, too, were large, and more like wolves in appearance than those the Bay folk used, and the komatik was narrower but much longer and heavier than those he was accustomed to. He was surely in a new and strange land.

More igloos were seen during the afternoon, but they were passed as the first had been, and at night the party bivouacked in the open as they had done the night before.

On the morning of the third day they passed into a stretch of barren, treeless, rolling country, and before midday turned upon a well-beaten komatik trail, which they followed for a couple of miles, when it swung sharply to the left towards the river, and as they turned around a ledge of rocks at the top of a low ridge a view met Bob that made him shout with joy, and hasten his pace.

At his feet, in the field of snow, lay a post of the Hudson's Bay Company.

XVIII

A MISSION OF TRUST

As Bob looked down upon the whitewashed buildings of the Post, his sensation was very much like that of a shipwrecked sailor who has for a long time been drifting hopelessly about upon a trackless sea in a rudderless boat, and suddenly finds himself safe in harbour. The lad had never seen anything in his whole life that looked so comfortable as that little cluster of log buildings with the smoke curling from the chimney tops, and the general air of civilization that surrounded them. He did not know where he was, nor how far from home; but he did know that this was the habitation of white men, and the cloud of utter helplessness that had hung over him for so long was suddenly swept away and his sky was clear and bright again.

A man clad in a white adikey and white moleskin trousers emerged from one of the buildings, paused for a moment to gaze at Bob and his companions as they approached, and then reentered the building.