At the end of his first day"s struggle Roscoe built himself a camp in a bit of scrub timber, which was not much more than brush. If he had been an older hand he would have observed that this bit of timber, and every tree and bush that he had pa.s.sed since noon, was stripped and dead on the side that faced the north. It was a sign of the Great Barrens, and of the fierce storms that swept over them, destroying even the life of the trees. He cooked and ate his last food the following day, and went on. The small timber turned to scrub, and the scrub, in time, to vast snow wastes over which the storm swept mercilessly. All this day he looked for game, for a flutter of bird life; he chewed bark, and in the afternoon got a mouthful of Fox-bite, which made his throat swell until he could scarcely breathe.
At night he made tea, but had nothing to eat. His hunger was acute and painful. It was torture the next day--the third--for the process of starvation is a rapid one in this country where only the fittest survive on four meals a day. He camped, built a small bush fire at night, and slept.
He almost failed to rouse himself on the morning that followed, and when he staggered to his feet and felt the cutting sting of the storm still in his face, and heard the swishing wail of it over the Barren, he knew that at last the moment had come when he was standing face to face with the Almighty.
For some strange reason he was not frightened at the situation. He found that even over the level s.p.a.ces he could scarcely drag his snow shoes, but this had ceased to alarm him as he had been alarmed at first. He went on, hour after hour, weaker and weaker. Within himself there was still life which reasoned that if death were to come it could not come in a better way. It at least promised to be painless--even pleasant. The sharp, stinging pains of hunger, like little electrical knives piercing him, were gone; he no longer experienced a sensation of intense cold; he almost felt that he could lie down in the drifted snow and sleep peacefully. He knew what it would be--a sleep without end--with the arctic foxes to pick his bones, and so he resisted the temptation and forced himself onward. The storm still swept straight west from Hudson"s Bay, bringing with it endless volleys of snow, round and hard as fine shot; snow that had at first seemed to pierce his flesh, and which swished past his feet, as if trying to trip him, and tossed itself in windrows and mountains in his path. If he could only find timber--shelter! That was what he worked for now. When he had last looked at his watch it was nine o"clock in the morning; now it was late in the afternoon. It might as well have been night. The storm had long since half blinded him. He could not see a dozen paces ahead. But the little life in him still reasoned bravely. It was a heroic spark of life, a fighting spark, and hard to put out. It told him that when he came to shelter be would at least _feel_ it, and that he must fight until the last.
And all this time, for ages and ages it seemed to him, he kept mumbling over and over again Ransom"s words:
_"Go back--Go back--Go back---"_
They rang in his brain. He tried to keep step with their monotone. The storm could not drown them. They were meaningless words to him now, but they kept him company. Also, his rifle was meaningless, but he clung to it.
The pack on his back held no significance and no weight for him. He might have travelled a mile or ten miles an hour and he would not have sensed the difference. Most men would have buried themselves in the snow, and died in comfort, dreaming the pleasant dreams which come as a sort of recompense to the unfortunate who die of starvation and cold. But the fighting spark commanded Roscoe to die upon his feet, if he died at all. It was this spark which brought him at last to a bit of timber thick enough to give him shelter from wind and snow. It burned a little more warmly then. It flared up, and gave him new vision. And, for the first time, he realized that it must be night. For a light was burning ahead of him, and all else was gloom. His first thought was that it was a campfire, miles and miles away.
Then it drew nearer--until he knew that it was a light in a cabin window.
He dragged himself toward it, and when he came to the door he tried to shout. But no sound fell from his swollen lips. It seemed an hour before he could twist his feet out of his snowshoes. Then he groped for a latch, pressed against the door, and plunged in.
What he saw was like a picture suddenly revealed for an instant by a flashlight. In the cabin there were four men. Two sat at a table, directly in front of him. One held a dice box poised in the air, and had turned a rough, bearded face toward him. The other was a younger man, and in this moment of lapsing consciousness it struck Roscoe as strange that he should be clutching a can of beans between his hands. A third man stared from where he had been looking down upon the dice-play of the other two. As Roscoe came in he was in the act of lowering a half-filled bottle from his lips. The fourth man sat on the edge of a bunk, with a face so white and thin that he might have been taken for a corpse if it had not been for a dark glare in his sunken eyes. Roscoe smelled the odor of whisky; he smelled food. He saw no sign of welcome in the faces turned toward him, but he advanced upon them, mumbling incoherently. And then the spark--the fighting spark in him--gave out, and he crumpled down on the floor. He heard a voice, which came to him--as if from a great distance, and which said, "Who the h--l is this?" And then, after what seemed to be a long time, he heard another voice say, "Pitch him back into the snow."
After that he lost consciousness.
A long time before he awoke he knew that he was not in the snow, and that hot stuff was running down his throat. When he opened his eyes there was no longer a light burning in the cabin. It was day. He felt strangely comfortable, but there was something in the cabin that stirred him from his rest. It was the odour of frying bacon. He raised himself upon his elbow, prepared to thank his deliverers, and to eat. All of his hunger had come back. The joy of life, of antic.i.p.ation, shone in his thin face as he pulled himself up. Another face--the bearded face--red-eyed, almost animal-like in its fierce questioning, bent over him.
"Where"s your grub, pardner?"
The question was like a stab. Roscoe did not hear his own voice as he explained.
"Got none!" The bearded man"s voice was like a bellow as he turned upon the others.
"He"s got no grub!"
"We"ll divvy up, Jack," came a weak voice. It was from the thin, white-faced man who had sat corpse-like on the edge of his bunk the night before.
"Divvy h--l!" growled the bearded man. "It"s up to you--you and Scotty.
You"re to blame!"
You"re to blame!
The words struck upon Roscoe"s ears with a chill of horror. He recalled the voice that had suggested throwing him back into the snow. Starvation was in the cabin. He had fallen among animals instead of men, and his body grew cold with a chill that was more horrible than that of the snow and the wind. He saw the thin-faced man who had spoken for him sitting again on the edge of his bunk. Mutely he looked to the others to see which was Scotty.
He was the young man who had clutched the can of beans. It was he who was frying bacon over the sheet iron stove.
"We"ll divvy--Henry and I," he said. "I told you that last night." He looked over at Roscoe. "Glad you"re better," he greeted. "You see--you"ve struck us at a bad time. We"re on our last legs for grub. Our two Indians went out to hunt a week ago and never came back. They"re dead--or gone, and we"re as good as dead if the storm doesn"t let up pretty soon. You can have some of our grub--Henry"s and mine."
It was a cold invitation, lacking warmth or sympathy, and Roscoe felt that even this man wished that he had died before he reached the cabin. But the man was human; he at least had not cast his voice with those who had wanted to throw him back into the snow, and Roscoe tried to voice his grat.i.tude, and at the same time to hide his hunger. He saw that there were three thin slices of bacon in the frying pan, and it struck him that it would be bad taste to reveal a starvation appet.i.te in the face of such famine. He came up, limping, and stood on the other side of the stove from Scotty.
"You saved my life," he said, holding out a hand. "Will you shake?"
Scotty shook hands limply.
"It"s h--l," he said in a low voice. "We"d have had beans this morning if I hadn"t shook dice with him last night." He nodded toward the bearded man, who was cutting open the top of a can. "He won!"
"My G.o.d!" began Roscoe.
He didn"t finish. Scotty turned the meat, and added:
"He won a square meal off me yesterday--a quarter of a pound of bacon. Day before that he won Henry"s last can of beans. He"s got his share under his blanket over there, and swears he"ll shoot any one who goes to monkeying with his bed--so you"d better fight shy of it. Thompson--he isn"t up yet--chose the whisky for _his_ share, so you"d better fight shy of him, too. Henry and I"ll divvy up with you."
"Thanks," said Roscoe, the one word choking him.
Henry came from his bunk, bent and wobbling. He looked like a dying man, and for the first time Roscoe saw that his hair was gray. He was a little man, and his thin hands shook as he held them out over the stove, and nodded at Roscoe. The bearded man had opened his can, and approached the stove with a pan of water, coming in beside Roscoe without noticing him. He brought with him a foul odour of stale tobacco smoke and whisky. After he had put his water over the fire he turned to one of the bunks and with half a dozen coa.r.s.e epithets roused Thompson, who sat up stupidly, still half drunk. Henry had gone to a small table, and Scotty followed him with the bacon. But Roscoe did not move. He forgot his hunger. His pulse was beating quickly. Sensations filled him which he had never known or imagined before.
He had known tragedy; he had investigated to what he had supposed to be the depths of human vileness--but this that he was experiencing now stunned him. Was it possible that these were people of his own kind? Had a madness of some sort driven all human instincts from them? He saw Thompson"s red eyes fastened upon him, and he turned his face to escape their questioning, stupid leer. The bearded man was turning out the can of beans he had won from Scotty. Beyond the bearded man the door creaked, and Roscoe heard the wail of the storm. It came to him now as a friendly sort of sound.
"Better draw up, pardner," he heard Scotty say. "Here"s your share."
One of the thin slices of bacon and a hard biscuit were waiting for him on a tin plate. He ate as ravenously as Henry and Scotty, and drank a cup of hot tea. In two minutes the meal was over. It was terribly inadequate. The few mouthfuls of food stirred up all his craving, and he found it impossible to keep his eyes from the bearded man and his beans. The bearded man, whom Scotty called Croker, was the only one who seemed well fed, and his horror increased when Henry bent over and said to him in a low whisper: "He didn"t get my beans fair. I had three aces and a pair of deuces, an" he took it on three fives and two sixes. When I objected he called me a liar an" hit me. Them"s my beans, or Scotty"s!" There was something almost like murder in the little man"s red eyes.
Roscoe remained silent. He did not care to talk, or question. No one had asked him who he was or whence he came, and he felt no inclination to know more of the men he had fallen among. Croker finished, wiped his mouth with his hand, and looked across at Roscoe.
"How about going out with me to get some wood?" he demanded.
"I"m ready," replied Roscoe.
For the first time he took notice of himself. He was lame, and sickeningly weak, but apparently sound in other ways. The intense cold had not frozen his ears or feet. He put on his heavy moccasins, his thick coat and fur cap, and Croker pointed to his rifle.
"Better take that along," he said. "Can"t tell what you might see."
Roscoe picked it up and the pack which lay beside it. He did not catch the ugly leer which the bearded man turned upon Thompson. But Henry did, and his little eyes grew smaller and blacker. On snowshoes the two men went out into the storm, Croker carrying an axe. He led the way through the bit of thin timber, and across a wide open over which the storm swept so fiercely that their trail was covered behind them as they travelled. Roscoe figured that they had gone a quarter of a mile when they came to another clump of trees, and Croker gave him the axe.
"You can cut down some of this," he said. "It"s better burning than that back there. I"m going on for a dry log that I know of. You wait until I come back."
Roscoe set to work upon a spruce, but he could scarcely strike out a chip.
After a little he was compelled to drop his axe, and lean against the tree, exhausted. At intervals he resumed his cutting. It was half an hour before the small tree fell. Then he waited for Croker. Behind him his trail was already obliterated. After a little he raised his voice and called for Croker. There was no reply. The wind moaned above him in the spruce tops.
It made a noise like the wash of the sea out on the open Barren. He shouted again. And again. The truth dawned upon him slowly--but it came. Croker had brought him out purposely--to lose him. He was saving the bacon and the cold biscuits back in the cabin. Roscoe"s hands clenched tightly, and then they relaxed. At last he had found what he was after--his book! It would be a terrible book, if he carried out the idea that flashed upon him now in the wailing and twisting of the storm. And then he laughed, for it occurred to him quickly that the idea would die--with himself. He might find the cabin, but he would not make the effort. Once more he would fight alone and for himself. The Spark returned to him, loyally. He b.u.t.toned himself up closely, saw that his snowshoes were securely fastened, and struck out once more with his back to the storm. He was at least a trifle better off for meeting with the flesh and blood of his kind.
The clump of timber thinned out, and Roscoe struck out boldly into the low bush. As he went, he wondered what would happen in the cabin. He believed that Henry, of the four, would not pull through alive, and that Croker would come out best. It was not until the following summer that he learned the facts of Henry"s madness, and of the terrible manner in which he avenged himself on Croker by sticking a knife under the latter"s ribs.
For the first time in his life Roscoe found himself in a position to measure accurately the amount of energy contained in a slice of bacon and a cold biscuit. It was not much. Long before noon his old weakness was upon him again. He found even greater difficulty in dragging his feet over the snow, and it seemed now as though all ambition had left him, and that even the fighting spark was becoming disheartened. He made up his mind to go on until the arctic gloom of night began mingling with the storm; then he would stop, build a fire, and go to sleep in its warmth. He would never wake up, and there would be no sensation of discomfort in his dying.
During the afternoon he pa.s.sed out of the scrub into a rougher country. His progress was slower, but more comfortable, for at times he found himself protected from the wind. A gloom darker and more sombre than that of the storm was falling about him when he came to what appeared to be the end of the Barren. The earth dropped away from under his feet, and far below him, in a ravine shut out from wind and storm, he saw the black tops of thick spruce. What life was left in him leaped joyously, and he began to scramble downward. His eyes were no longer fit to judge distance or chance, and he slipped. He slipped a dozen times in the first five minutes, and then there came the time when he did not make a recovery, but plunged down the side of the mountain like a rock. He stopped with a terrific jar, and for the first time during the fall he wanted to cry out with pain. But the voice that he heard did not come from his own lips. It was another voice--and then two, three, many of them. His dazed eyes caught glimpses of dark objects floundering in the deep snow about him, and just beyond these objects were four or five tall mounds of snow, like tents, arranged in a circle. A number of times that winter Roscoe had seen mounds of snow like these, and he knew what they meant. He had fallen into an Indian village. He tried to call out the words of greeting that Rameses had taught him, but he had no tongue. Then the floundering figures caught him up, and he was carried to the circle of snow-mounds. The last that he knew was that warmth was entering his lungs, and that once again there came to him the low, sweet music of a Cree girl"s voice.
It was a face that he first saw after that, a face that seemed to come to him slowly from out of night, approaching nearer and nearer until he knew that it was a girl"s face, with great, dark, shining eyes whose l.u.s.tre suffused him with warmth and a strange happiness. It was a face of wonderful beauty, he thought--of a wild sort of beauty, yet with something so gentle in the shining eyes that he sighed restfully. In these first moments of his returning consciousness the whimsical thought came to him that he was dying, and the face was a part of a pleasant dream. If that were not so he had fallen at last among friends. His eyes opened wider, he moved, and the face drew back. Movement stimulated returning life, and reason rehabilitated itself in great bounds. In a dozen flashes he went over all that had happened up to the point where he had fallen down the mountain and into the Cree camp. Straight above him he saw a funnel-like peak through which there drifted a blue film of smoke. He was in a wigwam.
It was warm and exceedingly comfortable. Wondering if he was hurt, he moved. The movement drew a sharp exclamation of pain from him. It was the first real sound he had made, and in an instant the face was over him again. He saw it plainly this time, with its dark eyes and oval cheeks framed between two great braids of black hair. A hand touched his brow cool and gentle, and a sweet voice soothed him in half a dozen musical words.
The girl was a Cree.
At the sound of her voice an Indian woman came up beside her, looked down at Roscoe for a moment, and then went to the door of the wigwam, speaking in a low voice to some one who was outside. When she returned a man followed in after her. He was old and bent, and his face was thin. His cheek-bones shone, so tightly was the skin drawn over them. And behind him came a younger man, as straight as a tree, with strong shoulders, and a head set like a piece of bronze sculpture. Roscoe thought of Ransom and of his words about old Rameses:
"You will find something in his face which will recall what I have said, and make you think of the First People."
The second man carried in his hand a frozen fish, which he gave to the woman. And as he gave it to her he spoke words in Cree which Roscoe understood.
"It is the last fish."