[Ill.u.s.tration: "POOR OLD CHAP!"]
Mooswa stuck out his rough tongue, and caressed the wrist. Rod scratched the Bull"s forehead in return, and they were friends.
The big eyes of Mooswa wandered about the bare pathetic interior. It was a poor enough place for a crippled Boy--but what could be done. "I wish I could speak to him," he thought, rubbing his ma.s.sive face against the flannel shirt rea.s.suringly. Then he turned and walked solemnly through the little clearing, and disappeared in the thick wood.
The bacon put new heart in Roderick.
A rational explanation of this advent of the pork appeared to be that it had fallen from the roof; but all through that night of distress The Boy had muttered broken little prayers, just as he had done for years at his mother"s knee, and whether it had actually fallen from the roof or from the skies was not the real issue, for he was convinced that it had come in answer to his prayers.
The pain crept up his leg, up his back, and, as the hours dragged on, the dreary, lonesome hours, it mounted to his brain, and the queer fancies of approaching delirium carried him to a fairy land peopled by unreal things. He had just sanity enough to keep the chimney fire going, but his little pile of wood dwindled until the last stick was placed on the coals. When in the afternoon Carcajou dropped three billets that Umisk had cut down the chimney, Roderick laughed. He was a King in delirium-land, and when he wanted anything all he had to do was pray, and the angels would send it.
Sometimes the sticks of wood rolled out on the floor as they clattered down--these The Boy put to one side.
"I suppose the angels won"t come in the night," he whispered; then laughed. It was a grotesque idea, but the fire was kept blazing.
He had no rational thought of eating; when he felt hunger-pains he fried a little of the bacon and ate it. Sometimes he made a batter of flour and water, cooking the mixture in a frying-pan over the fire--turning out an almost impossible kind of pancake.
"He acts like Wapoos in the early Spring," Whisky-Jack told Mooswa: "laughs, and whistles, and cries, and sobs; but he eats, which is a good thing, and is also warm. I never thought that crop-eared Hunchback, Carcajou, had goodness enough in him to do anything for anybody."
"He"s like yourself, Whisky-Jack, a bit of a th--sharp-tongued fellow, I mean" (thief, he was going to say, but checked himself just in time), "and full of queer tricks, but good-hearted enough when a Comrade is in trouble. How long will the Fat-eating, which is the food of you Meat-eaters, last The Boy?" Mooswa asked.
"Perhaps three days."
"Also, is it good food for the sick--is it not too strong? When I am not well there are certain plants that agree with me, and others I cannot touch."
"Fish would be better," declared Jack, with the air of a consulting physician.
"I thought so," said Mooswa. "The smell of that bacon at the door almost turned my stomach. If the Man-Cub could only eat sweet Birch-tips, or dried Moose-flower--it"s delicious when well preserved under deep snow. Even unrotted moss would be better for him than that evil-scented Meat."
The Bird laughed, "He, he, he! fancy the Man-Cub chewing a great cud of mushy gra.s.s. Now Fish, as I have said, would be just the thing; there"s nothing lies so sweet on one"s stomach, unless it"s b.u.t.ter. Warm Roostings! but I wish that cat-faced Pisew had been hanged before he found my cache."
"Jack," continued Moose, "you might ask Nekik or Sakwasew to catch a Fish for The Boy; they are all bound by the promise to help take care of him."
"All right," said Jay. "Otter might do it, for he"s a generous Chap, but Sakwasew is a greedy little snip, I think. I never knew a Mink yet that wasn"t selfish."
"I don"t know how long we shall have to look after this Man-Cub," Mooswa said, when he, and Rof, and Black King talked the matter over that evening. "Francois is a good Trapper, we all know that to our sorrow, and he likes The Boy, for he was years with his Father, the Factor, as servant to the Company, but still he"s a Breed, and if there"s any fire-water at The Landing it is hard to say when he may get back; besides, the breath of the mountain that shrivelled us all for two days may have got into his heart."
"My Pack hunts for three days in the far Boundaries," muttered Blue Wolf.
"Why?" asked the King, sharply.
"In three days I will tell Your Majesty," answered Rof, shutting his jaws with a snap.
"Well, well," exclaimed Black Fox, "in the Year of Starvation there is no preserve. We hunt where we find, and eat where we catch; and only the Kit-law and the Cub-law, and the Seventh Year Law of the Wapoos is binding."
Blue Wolf disappeared for three days; and for three days Umisk cut wood for The Boy, and Carcajou dropped it down the chimney. Mooswa went every day and rubbed his horns against the door. The coming of his Moose friend was also a part of the angel care the wounded boy had dreamed into his life. His eager joy at even this companionship was pitiable; but it was something to look forward to--something to pull him back out of the deeper levels of delirium-world.
Nekik, the Otter, caught a fish, at Mooswa"s request, and Carcajou dropped it down the chimney.
"It will burn," objected Umisk, who was cutting wood.
"Then The Boy will find it with his nose," answered Carcajou.
After that Roderick asked the angels to bring him fish--it was better than bacon. They were queer angels, Nekik and Carcajou, but the sick lad got a fish every day.
On the third day Blue Wolf returned. "I found one of the Men-kind down the river," he announced to Mooswa and Black Fox; "he is trapping alone, I think."
"Well," queried Black King, "what of that?" for he did not quite understand.
"If we could get him to The Boy I thought it might be well," answered Blue Wolf.
"Ah! I see," cried the King. "That"s why the Pack hunted for three days in the far Boundaries."
Wolf growled a deprecating objection.
"How far away is he?" asked Mooswa.
"Six hours of the Chase-lope," answered Blue Wolf.
"I could bring him, even as I led Francois away when you were not desirous of his company, Your Majesty," said the Moose.
"It"s a dangerous game," muttered Black Fox. "I don"t like it--one can"t judge the strike of their Firesticks; and you"re such a big mark--like the side of a Man"s Shack."
"I saw The Boy"s leg to-day," continued Mooswa, "and it"s bigger, with this wound-poison, than my nose. Unless he gets help soon, he will die."
"Francois should be back in a day or two," declared the King.
"Francois is a Breed," a.s.serted Mooswa; "and days are like the little sticks the Breed-men use when they play cards--something to gamble with."
"The Pack could be ready if the Man pressed too close as you led him to our Man-Cub," suggested Rof.
"I do not fear him the first day," continued Mooswa; "Man"s speed is always the same and I can judge of it; it is the second day, when I am tired from the deep snow, that a little rest, too long drawn out, or a misjudged circle with one of the followers travelling wide of my trail, that may cause me to come within reach of their Firestick."
"Well, you might not reach Red Stone Brook in one day," a.s.serted Blue Wolf; "so perchance you may need help the second. You"ll find the Man just below Big Rapids."
"I"ll start to-night," said Mooswa, "for The Boy must get help from his own kind soon. He is sick of the wounded leg--also of a half-filled stomach; but then there is another illness that neither I nor any of us can understand. Perhaps it is of that thing the Factor said Men had and would sell for the evil fire-water--the soul. One time the eyes of The Boy are all right, even as yours, Rof, or mine, seeing the things that are; and then a look comes in them that is like the darkening of a purple Moose-flower when the sunlight is suddenly chased away by a cloud. Then this Boy, that is a Man-Cub, talks to his Mother, and his Sister, and calls to the things he names Angels, up on the roof; though I know not what they may be, because it is only little humpbacked Carcajou dropping wood down the chimney. Yes, that"s what it must be,"
Mooswa continued, reflectively, "the sickness of this Soul-thing the Men-kind have, for The Boy laughs, and cries, and his eyes blaze, and look soft like one"s young, and flood with tears, and glare hot and dry.
Yes, he must have help from his own kind, for we know not of this thing.
"With good fortune I may lead this Man to him by the coming of darkness the first day; if not, then Blue Wolf will stand guard on my trail the second."
"Yes, even the first day, also, will I be near," a.s.serted Rof.
FRANcOIS AT THE LANDING