If we don"t raise anything there, we"d better get over toward the Nip.i.s.sing country."
"All right," said d.i.c.k.
The older man began to ask minutely concerning the equipment, provisions, and dog food.
"It"s all right as long as we can take it easy and hunt," advised Sam, gradually approaching the subject that was really troubling him, "and it"s all right if we can surprise this Jingoss or ambush him when we find him. But suppose he catches wind of us and skips, what then? It"ll be a mighty pretty race, my son, and a hard one. We"ll have to fly light and hard, and we"ll need every pound of grub we can sc.r.a.pe."
The young man"s eyes darkened and his nostrils expanded with the excitement of this thought.
"Just let"s strike his trail!" he exclaimed.
"That"s all right," agreed the woodsman, his eyes narrowing; "but how about the girl, then?"
But d.i.c.k exhibited no uneasiness. He merely grinned broadly.
"Well, _what_ about the girl? That"s what I"ve been telling you. Strikes me that"s one of your troubles."
Half-satisfied, the veteran fell silent. Shortly after he made an opportunity to speak to May-may-gwan.
"All is well, Little Sister?" he inquired.
"All is well," she replied; "we have finished the parkas, the sledges, the snow-shoes, the blankets, and we have made much food."
"And Jibiwanisi?"
"His foot is nearly healed. Yesterday he walked to the Big Pool and back. To-day, even this afternoon, Little Father, the Black Spirit left him so that he has been gay."
Convinced that the restored good feeling was the result rather of d.i.c.k"s volatile nature than of too good an understanding, the old man left the subject.
"Little Sister," he went on, "soon we are going to take the winter trail. It may be that we will have to travel rapidly. It may be that food will be scarce. I think it best that you do not go with us."
She looked up at him.
"These words I have expected," she replied. "I have heard the speech you have made with the Ojibway men you have met. I have seen the preparations you have made. I am not deceived. You and Jibiwanisi are not looking for winter posts. I do not know what it is you are after, but it is something you wish to conceal. Since you have not told me, I know you wish to conceal it from me. I did not know all this when I left Haukemah and his people. That was a foolish thing. It was done, and I do not know why. But it was done, and it cannot be undone. I could not go back to the people of Haukemah now; they would kill me. Where else can I go? I do not know where the Ojibways, my own people, live."
"What do you expect to do, if you stay with me?" inquired Sam, curiously.
"You come from Conjuror"s House. You tell the Indians you come from Winnipeg, but that is not so. When you have finished your affairs, you will return to Conjuror"s House. There I can enter the household of some officer."
"But you cannot take the winter trail," objected Sam.
"I am strong; I can take the winter trail."
"And perhaps we may have to journey hard and fast."
"As when one pursues an enemy," said the girl, calmly. "Good. I am fleet. I too can travel. And if it comes to that, I will leave you without complaint when I can no longer tread your trail."
"But the food," objected Sam, still further.
"Consider, Little Father," said May-may-gwan; "of the food I have prepared much; of the work, I have done much. I have tended the traps, raised the nets, fashioned many things, attended Eagle-eye. If I had not been here, then you, Little Father, could not have made your journeys. So you have gained some time."
"That is true," conceded Sam.
"Listen, Little Father, take me with you. I will drive the dogs, make the camp, cook the food. Never will I complain. If the food gets scarce, I will not ask for my share. That I promise."
"Much of what you say is true," a.s.sented the woodsman, "but you forget you came to us of your free will and unwelcomed. It would be better that you go to Missinaibie."
"No," replied the girl.
"If you hope to become the squaw of Jibiwanisi," said Sam, bluntly, "you may as well give it up."
The girl said nothing, but compressed her lips to a straight line. After a moment she merely reiterated her original solution:
"At Conjuror"s House I know the people."
"I will think of it," then concluded Sam.
d.i.c.k, however, could see no good in such an arrangement. He did not care to discuss the matter at length, but preserved rather the att.i.tude of a man who has shaken himself free of all the responsibility of an affair, and is mildly amused at the tribulations of another still involved in it.
"You"ll have a lot of trouble dragging a squaw all over the north," he advised Sam, critically. "Of course, we can"t turn her adrift here.
Wouldn"t do that to a dog. But it strikes me it would even pay us to go out of our way to Missinaibie to get rid of her. We could do that."
"Well, I don"t know--" doubted Sam. "Of course--"
"Oh, bring her along if you want to," laughed d.i.c.k, "only it"s your funeral. You"ll get into trouble, sure. And don"t say I didn"t tell you."
It might have been imagined by the respective att.i.tudes of the two men that actually Sam had been responsible for the affair from the beginning. Finally, laboriously, he decided that the girl should go. She could be of a.s.sistance; there was small likelihood of the necessity for protracted hasty travel.
The weather was getting steadily colder. Greasy-looking clouds drove down from the north-west. Heavy winds swept by. The days turned gray.
Under the shelter of trees the ground froze into hummocks, which did not thaw out. The crisp leaves which had made the forest so noisy disintegrated into sodden silence. A wildness was in the air, swooping down with the breeze, buffeting in the little whirlwinds and eddies, rocking back and forth in the tops of the storm-beaten trees. Cold little waves lapped against the thin fringe of sh.o.r.e ice that crept day by day from the banks. The water itself turned black. Strange birds swirling down wind like leaves uttered weird notes of migration. The wilderness hardened to steel.
The inmates of the little camp waited. Each morning d.i.c.k was early afoot searching the signs of the weather; examining the ice that crept stealthily from sh.o.r.e, waiting to pounce upon and imprison the stream; speculating on the chances of an early season. The frost pinched his bare fingers severely, but he did not mind that. His leg was by now almost as strong as ever, and he was impatient to be away, to leave behind him this rapid that had gained over him even a temporary victory.
Always as the time approached, his spirits rose. It would have been difficult to identify this laughing boy with the sullen and terrible man who had sulked through the summer. He had made friends with all the dogs. Even the fierce "huskies" had become tame, and liked to be upset and tousled about and dragged on their backs growling fierce but mock protest. The b.i.t.c.h he had named Claire; the hound with the long ears he had called Mack, because of a fancied and mournful likeness to MacDonald, the Chief Trader; the other "husky" he had christened Wolf, for obvious reasons; and there remained, of course, the original Billy.
d.i.c.k took charge of the feeding. At first he needed his short, heavy whip to preserve order, but shortly his really admirable gift with animals gained way, and he had them sitting peacefully in a row awaiting each his turn.
At last the skim ice made it impossible longer to use the canoe in fishing on the river. The craft was, therefore, suspended bottom up between two trees. A little snow fell and remained, but was speedily swept into hollows. The temperature lowered. It became necessary to a.s.sume thicker garments. Once having bridged the river the ice strengthened rapidly. And then late one afternoon, on the wings of the northwest wind, came the snow. All night it howled past the trembling wigwam. All the next day it swirled and drifted and took the shapes of fantastic monsters leaping in the riot of the storm. Then the stars, cold and brilliant, once more crackled in the heavens. The wilderness in a single twenty-four hours had changed utterly. Winter had come.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
In the starlit, bitter cold of a north country morning the three packed their sledge and harnessed their dogs. The rawhide was stubborn with the frost, the dogs uneasy. Knots would not tie. Pain nipped the fingers, cruel pain that ate in and in until it had exposed to the shock of little contacts every tightened nerve. Each stiff, clumsy movement was agony. From time to time one of the three thrust hand in mitten to beat the freezing back. Then a new red torture surged to the very finger-tips. They bore it in silence, working hastily, knowing that every morning of the long, winter trip this fearful hour must come. Thus each day the North would greet them, squeezing their fingers in the cruel hand-clasp of an antagonist testing their strength.
Over the supplies and blankets was drawn the skin envelope laced to the sledge. The last reluctant knot was tied. Billy, the leader of the four dogs, casting an intelligent eye at his masters, knew that all was ready, and so arose from his haunches. d.i.c.k twisted his feet skilfully into the loops of his snow-shoes. Sam, already equipped, seized the heavy dog-whip. The girl took charge of the gee-pole with which the sledge would be guided.
"Mush!--Mush on!" shouted Sam.