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 antic.i.p.ation 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 ma.s.s 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 unenc.u.mbered 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 h.o.a.r frost that lay upon the bushes along the river bank sparkled like filmy draperies of spun silver, and transformed the bushes into an unearthly mult.i.tude of shining spirits that had gathered there from the dark, mysterious forest which lay behind them, to watch the pa.s.sing 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 s.p.a.ce, several feet in circ.u.mference, 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 a.s.sumed 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 pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.sed 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 cl.u.s.ter 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.
As they descended the hill the Indians turned to an isolated cabin which stood somewhat apart from the main group of buildings and to the eastward of them, but Bob ran down to the one into which the man had disappeared. His heart was all aflutter with excitement and expectancy. As he approached the door, it suddenly opened, and there appeared before him a tall, middle-aged man with full, sandy beard and a kindly face. Bob felt intuitively that this was the factor of the Post, and he said very respectfully,
"Good day, sir."
"Good day, good day," said the man. "I thought at first you were an Indian. Come in."
Bob entered and found himself in the trader"s office. At one side were two tables that served as desks, and on a shelf against the wall behind them rested a row of musty ledgers and account books. Benches in lieu of chairs surrounded a large stove in the centre.
"Take off your skin coat and sit down," invited the trader, who was, indeed, Mr. MacPherson of whom the Indians had told.
"Thank you, sir," said Bob.
When he was finally seated Mr. McPherson asked:
"That was Sishetakushin"s crowd you came with, wasn"t it?"
"Yes, sir," Bob answered.
"Where did you hail from? It"s something new to see a white man come out of the bush with the Indians."
"From Eskimo Bay, sir, an" what place may this be?"
"Eskimo Bay! Eskimo Bay! Why, this is Ungava! How in the world did you ever get across the country? What"s your name?"
"My name"s Bob Gray, sir, an" I lives at Wolf Bight." Then Bob went on, prompted now and again by the factor"s questions, to tell the story of his adventures.
"Well," said Mr. MacPherson, "you"ve had a wonderful escape from freezing and death and a remarkable experience. You"d better go over to the men"s house and they"ll put you up there. Come back after you"ve had dinner and we"ll talk your case over. The dinner bell is ringing now," he added, as the big bell began to clang. "Perhaps I"d better go over with you and show you the way."
The men"s house, as the servants" quarters were called, was a one-story log house but a few steps from the office. As Bob and Mr.
MacPherson entered it, a big man with a bushy red beard, and a tall brawny man with clean shaven face, both perhaps twenty-five or thirty years of age, and both with "Scot" written all over their countenances, were in the act of sitting down to an uncovered table, while an ugly old Indian hag was dishing up a savory stew of ptarmigan.
Bob"s eye took in a plate heaped high with white bread in the centre of the table and he mentally resolved that it should not be there when he had finished dinner.
"Here"s some company for you," announced the factor. "Ungava Bob just ran over from Eskimo Bay to pay us a visit. Take care of him. This,"