"I guessed it might be."
"You"re a bad guesser. It"s an "M." "M" stands for McRae, doesn"t it?"
"Yes, and "W" for Winthrop," he said with a little flare of boldness.
A touch of soft color flagged her cheeks. "And "I" for impudence," she retorted with a smile that robbed the words of offense.
He was careful not to risk outstaying his welcome. After an hour he rose to go. His good-bye to Matapi-Koma and Onistah was made in the large living-room.
Jessie followed him to the outside door.
He gave her a word of comfort as he b.u.t.toned his coat, "Don"t you worry about Win. I"ll keep an eye on him."
"Thank you. And he"ll keep one on you, I suppose."
He laughed. That reversal of the case was a new idea to him. The prettiest girl in the North was not holding her breath till he returned safely. "I reckon," he said. "We"ll team together fine."
"Don"t be foolhardy, either of you," she cautioned.
"No," he promised, and held out his hand. "Good-bye, if I don"t see you in the mornin"."
He did not know she was s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g up her courage and had been for half an hour to do something she had never done before. She plunged at it, a tide of warm blood beating into her face beneath the tan.
""M" is for Morse too, and "T" for Tom," she said.
With the same motion she thrust the gun-case into his hand and him out of the door.
He stood outside, facing a closed door, the bit of fancy-work in his mittens. An exultant electric tingle raced through his veins. She had given him a token of friendship he would cherish all his life.
CHAPTER x.x.xI
THE LONG TRAIL
For four days Whaley lay between life and death. There were hours when the vital current in him ebbed so low that McRae thought it was the beginning of the end. But after the fifth day he began definitely to mend. His appet.i.te increased. The fever in him abated. The delirium pa.s.sed away. Just a week from the time he had been wounded, McRae put him on the cariole and took him to town over the hard crust of the snow.
Beresford returned from Fort Edmonton a few hours later, carrying with him an appointment for Morse as guide and deputy constable.
"Maintiens le droit," said the officer, clapping his friend on the shoulder. "You"re one of us now. A great chance for a short life you"ve got. Time for the insurance companies to cancel any policies they may have on you."
Morse smiled. He was only a deputy, appointed temporarily, but it pleased him to be chosen even in this capacity as a member of the most efficient police force in the world. "Maintiens le droit" was the motto of the Mounted. Tom did not intend that the morale of that body should suffer through him if he could help it.
Angus McRae had offered his dog-train for the pursuit and Beresford had promptly accepted. The four dogs of the Scotch trapper were far and away better than any others that could be picked up in a hurry.
They had stamina, and they were not savage and wolfish like most of those belonging to the Indians and even to the Hudson"s Bay Company.
Supplies for the trip had been gathered by Morse. From the Crees he had bought two hundred pounds of dried fish for the dogs. Their own provisions consisted of pemmican, dried caribou meat, flour, salt, tea, and tobacco.
All Faraway was out to see the start. The travelers would certainly cover hundreds and perhaps thousands of miles before their return.
Even in that country of wide s.p.a.ces, where men mushed far when the rivers and lakes were closed, this was likely to prove an epic trip.
Beresford cracked the long lash and Cuffy leaned forward in the traces. The tangle of dogs straightened out and began to move. A French voyageur lifted his throat in a peculiar shout that was half a bark. Indians and half-breeds snowshoed down the street beside the sled. At the door of the McRae house stood Angus, his wife, and daughter.
"G.o.d wi" you haith," the trapper called.
Jessie waved a scarf, and Beresford, who had spent the previous evening with her, threw up a hand in gay greeting.
The calvacade drew to the edge of the woods. Morse looked back. A slim figure, hardly distinguishable in the distance, still stood in front of the McRae house fluttering the scarf.
A turn in the trail hid her. Faraway was shut out of view.
For four or five miles the trappers stayed with them. It was rather a custom of the North to speed travelers on their way in this fashion.
At the edge of the first lake the Indians and half-breeds said good-bye and turned back.
Morse moved onto the ice and broke trail. The dogs followed in tandem--Cuffy, Koona, Bull, and Caesar. They traveled fast over the ice and reached the woods beyond. The timber was not thick. Beyond this was a second lake, a larger one. By the time they had crossed this, the sun was going down.
The men watched for a sheltered place to camp and as soon as they found one, they threw off the trail to the edge of the woods, drawing up the sledge back of them as a wind-break. They gathered pine for fuel and cut balsam boughs for beds. It had come on to snow, and they ate supper with their backs to the drive of the flakes, the hoods of their furs drawn over their heads.
The dogs sat round in a half-circle watching them and the frozen fish thawing before the fire. Their faces, tilted a little sideways, ears c.o.c.ked and eyes bright, looked anxiously expectant. When the fish were half-thawed, Morse tossed them by turn to the waiting animals, who managed to get rid of their supper with a snap and a gulp. Afterward they burrowed down in the snow and fell asleep.
On the blazing logs Beresford had put two kettles filled with snow.
These he refilled after the snow melted, until enough water was in them. Into one kettle he put a piece of fat caribou meat. The other was to make tea.
Using their snowshoes as shovels, they sc.r.a.ped a place clear and scattered balsam boughs on it. On this they spread an empty flour sack, cut open at the side. Tin plates and cups served as dish.
Their supper consisted of soggy bannocks, fat meat, and tea. While they ate, the snow continued to fall. It was not unwelcome, for so long as this lasted the cold could not be intolerable. Moreover, snow makes a good white blanket and protects against sudden drops in temperature.
They changed their moccasins and duffles and pulled on as night-wear long buffalo-skin boots, hood, m.u.f.flers, and fur mits. A heavy fur robe and a blanket were added. Into these last they snuggled down, wrapping themselves up so completely that a tenderfoot would have smothered for lack of air.
Before they retired, they could hear the ice on the lake cracking like distant thunder. The trees back of them occasionally snapped from the cold with reports that sounded like pistol shots.
In five minutes both men were asleep. They lay with their heads entirely covered, as the Indians did. Not once during the night did they stir. To disarrange their bedding and expose the nose or the hands to the air would be to risk being frozen.
Morse woke first. He soon had a roaring fire. Again there were two kettles on it, one for fat meat and the other for strong tea. No fish were thawing before the heat, for dogs are fed only once a day.
Otherwise they get sleepy and sluggish, losing the edge of their keenness.
They were off to an early start. There was a cold head wind that was uncomfortable. For hours they held to the slow, swinging stride of the webs. Sometimes the trail was through the forest, sometimes in and out of brush and small timber. Twice during the day they crossed lakes and hit up a lively pace. Once they came to a muskeg, four miles across, and had to plough over the moss hags while brush tangled their feet and slapped their faces.
Cuffy was a prince of leaders. He seemed to know by some sixth sense the best way to wind through underbrush and over swamps. He was master of the train and ruled by strength and courage as well as intelligence. Bull had ideas of his own, but after one sharp brush with Cuffy, from which he had emerged ruffled and bleeding, the native dog relinquished claim to dominance.
The travelers made about fifteen miles before noon. They came to a solitary tepee, built on the edge of a lake with a background of snow-burdened spruce. This lodge was constructed of poles arranged cone-shaped side by side, the c.h.i.n.ks between plastered with moss wedged in to fill every crevice. A thin wisp of smoke rose from an open s.p.a.ce in the top.
At the sound of the yelping dogs a man lifted the moose-skin curtain that served as a door. He was an old and wrinkled Cree. His face was so brown and tough and netted with seams that it resembled a piece of alligator leather. From out of it peered two very small bright eyes.
"Ugh! Ugh!" he grunted.
This appeared to be all the English that he knew. Beresford tried him in French and discovered he had a smattering of it. After a good many attempts, the soldier found that he had seen no white man with a dog-train in many moons. The Cree lived there alone, it appeared, and trapped for a living. Why he was separated from all his kin and tribal relations the young Canadian could not find out at the time. Later he learned that the old fellow was an outcast because he had once shown the white feather in a battle with Blackfeet fifty years earlier.