He was quite positive it was the right place, and he looked for axe cuttings, where he had chopped down trees for fire-wood, and found them. So, this was the place, but where was the tent? He was mystified. He searched up and down every corner of the grove, but found no clue. Could the Nascaupees have found his camp and carried his things away? There was no other solution.
""Th" Nascaupees has took un. The Nascaupees has sure took un," he said dejectedly, when he realized that the tent was really gone.
His situation was now desperate. He had no axe with which to build a temporary shelter or cut wood for a fire. The nearest cover was his tilt, and to reach it in the blinding, smothering snow-storm seemed hopeless. Already the cold was eating to his bones and he knew he must keep moving or freeze to death.
With the wind on his right he turned towards the south in the gathering darkness. He could not see two yards ahead. Blindly he plodded along hour after hour. As the time dragged on it seemed to him that he had been walking for ages. His motion became mechanical. He was faint from hunger and his mouth parched with thirst. The bitter wind was reaching to his very vitals in spite of the exertion, and at last he did not feel it much. He stumbled and fell now and again and each time it was more difficult to rise.
There was always a strong inclination to lie a little where he fell and rest, but his benumbed brain told him that to stop walking meant death, and urged him up again to further action.
Finally the snow ceased but he did not notice it. With his head held back and staring straight before him at nothing he stalked on throwing his feet ahead like an automaton. The stars came out one after another and looked down pitilessly upon the tragedy that was being enacted before their very eyes.
Many hours had pa.s.sed; morning was close at hand. The cold grew more intensely bitter but Bob did not know it. He was quite insensible to sensations now. Vaguely he imagined himself going home to Wolf Bight.
It was not far--he was almost there. In a little while he would see his father and mother and Emily--Emily--Emily was sick. He had something to make her her well--make her well--a silver fox--that would do it--yes, that would do it--a silver fox would make her well--dear little Emily.
From the distance there came over the frozen world a wolf"s howl, followed by another and another. The wolves were giving the cry of pursuit. There must be many of them and they were after caribou or game of some sort. This was the only impression the sound made upon his numbed senses.
Daylight was coming. He was very sleepy--very, very sleepy. Why not go to sleep? There was no reason for walking when it was so nice and warm here--and he was so weary and sleepy. There were trees all around and a nice white bed spread under them. He stumbled and fell and did not try to get up. Why should he? There was plenty of time to go home. It was so comfortable and soft here and he was so sleepy.
Then he imagined that he was in the warm tilt with the fire crackling in the stove. He cuddled down in the snow, and said the little prayer that he never forgot at night.
"Now-I-lay-me-down-to-sleep, I-pray-thee-Lard-my-soul-to-keep, If-I-should-die-before-I-wake I-pray-thee-Lard-my-soul-to-take.
An"-G.o.d-make-Emily-well."
The wolves were clamouring in the distance. They had caught the game that they were chasing. He could just hear them as he fell asleep.
The sun broke with the glory of a new world over the white wilderness.
The wolf howls ceased--and all was still.
X
THE PENALTY
For some reason Micmac John could not sleep. A little while he lay awake voluntarily, trying to contrive a plan to follow should he be found out. If, after he returned to the tilt for the pelts, there should not be sufficient snow to cover his trail, for instance, before the searching party came to look for Bob--and it surely would come, headed by d.i.c.k Blake--he would be in grave danger of being discovered.
Why had he not thought of all this before? He was afraid of d.i.c.k Blake, and d.i.c.k was the one man in the world, perhaps, that he was afraid of. Would d.i.c.k shoot him? he asked himself. Probably. If he were found he would have to die.
Life is sweet to a strong, healthy man brought face to face with the reality of death. In his more than half savage existence Micmac John had faced death frequently, and sometimes daily, and had never shrunk from it or felt a tremour of fear. He had held neither his own nor the life of other men as a thing of much value. The fact was that never before had he given one serious thought to what it meant to die. Like the foxes and the wolves, he had been an animal of prey and had looked upon life and death with hardly more consideration than they, and with the stoical indifference of his savage Indian ancestors.
But for some inexplicable reason this night the white half of his nature had been awakened and he found himself thinking of what it meant to die--to cease to be, with the world going on and on afterwards just as though nothing had happened. Then the teachings of a missionary whom he had heard preach in Nova Scotia came to him. He remembered what had been said of eternal happiness or eternal torment--that one or the other state awaited the soul of every one after death. Then a great terror took possession of him. If Bob Gray died, as he certainly must in this storm, _he_ would be responsible for it, and _his_ soul would be consigned to eternal torment--the terrible torment to last forever and forever, depicted by the missionary. He had committed many sins in his life, but they were of the past and forgotten. This was of the present. He could already, in his frenzied imagination see d.i.c.k Blake, the avenger. d.i.c.k would shoot him. That was certain--and then--eternal torment.
The wind moaned outside, and then rose to a shriek. He sprang up and looked wildly about him. It was the shriek of a d.a.m.ned soul! No, he had been dozing and it was only a dream, and he lay back trembling.
For a long while he could not go to sleep again. Fear had taken absolute and complete possession of him--the fear of the eternal d.a.m.nation that the missionary had so vividly pictured. It was a picture that had been received at the time without being seen and through all these years had remained in his brain, covered and hidden.
This day"s work had suddenly and for the first time drawn aside the screen and left it bare before his eyes displaying to him every fearful minute outline. He was a murderer and he would be punished.
There was no thought of repentance for sins committed--only fear of a fate that he shrunk from but which confronted him as a reality and a certainty--as great a certainty as his rising in the morning and so near at hand. He got up and looked out. The wind blew clouds of snow into his face. He could not see the tree that he knew was ten feet away. It was an awful night for a man to be out without shelter.
Micmac John lay down again and after a time the tired brain and body yielded to nature and he slept.
The instincts of the half-breed, keen even in slumber, felt rather than heard the diminishing of wind and snow as the storm subsided with the approach of morning, and he arose at once. The rest had quieted his nerves, and he was the stolid, revengeful Indian again. After a meagre breakfast of tea and jerked venison he took down the tent and lashed the things securely upon the toboggan and ere the first stars began to glimmer through the cloud rifts he was hurrying away in the stillness of the night.
When the sky finally cleared and the moon came out, cold and brilliant, there was something uncanny and weird in its light lying upon earth"s white shroud rent here and there by long, dark shadows across the trail. There was an indefinable mystery in the atmosphere.
Micmac John, accustomed as he was to the wilderness, felt an uneasiness in his soul, the reflex perhaps of the previous night"s awakening, that he could not quite throw off--a sense of impending danger--of a calamity about to happen. The trees became mighty men ready to strike at him as he approached and behind every bush crouched a waiting enemy. His guilty conscience was at work. The little spirit that G.o.d had placed within his bosom, to tell him when he was doing wrong, was not quite dead.
He increased his speed as daylight approached travelling almost at a run. Suddenly he stopped to listen. From somewhere in the distance behind him a wolf cry broke the morning silence. In a little while there were more wolf cries, and they were coming nearer and nearer.
The animals were doubtless following some quarry. Was it Bob they were after? A momentary qualm at the thought was quickly replaced by a feeling of satisfaction. That, he tried to argue with himself, would cover every clue to what had happened and was what he had hoped for.
He hurried on.
All at once a spasm of fear brought him to a halt. Could it be himself the wolves were trailing! The old horror of the night came back with all its reality and force. A clammy sweat broke out upon his body. He looked wildly about him for a retreat, but there was none. The wolves were gaining upon him rapidly and were very close now. There was no longer any doubt that _he_ was their quarry. They were trailing _him_.
Micmac John was in a narrow, open marsh, and the wolves were already at the edge of the woods that skirted it a hundred yards behind. A little distance ahead of him was a big boulder, and he ran for it. At that moment the pack came into view. He stopped and stood paralyzed until they were within thirty yards of him, then he turned mechanically, from force of habit, and fired at the leader, which fell. This held them in check for an instant and roused him to action.
He grabbed an axe from the toboggan and had time to gain the rock and take a stand with his back against it.
As the animals rushed upon the half breed he swung the axe and split the head of one. This temporarily repulsed them. He held them at bay for a time, swinging his axe at every attempted approach. They formed themselves into a half circle just beyond his reach, snapping and snarling at him and showing their ugly fangs. Another big gray creature, bolder than the rest, made a rush, but the swinging axe split its head, just as it had the others. They retreated a few paces, but they were not to be kept back for long. Micmac John knew that his end had come. His face was drawn and terrified, and in spite of the fearful cold and biting frost, perspiration stood out upon his forehead.
It was broad daylight now. Another wolf attacked from the front and fell under the axe. A little longer they parleyed. They were gradually growing more bold and narrowing the circle--coming so close that they were almost within reach of the swinging weapon. Finally a wolf on the right, and one on the left, charged at the same time, and in an instant those in front, as though acting upon a prearranged signal, closed in, and the pack became one snarling, fighting, clamouring ma.s.s.
When the sun broke over the eastern horizon a little later it looked upon a circle of flat-tramped, blood-stained snow, over which were scattered bare picked human bones and pieces of torn clothing. A pack of wolves trotted leisurely away over the marsh.
In the woods not a mile distant two Indian hunters were following the trail that led to Bob"s unconscious body.
[Ill.u.s.tration: "Micmac John knew his end had come"]
XI
THE TRAGEDY OF THE TRAIL
A week pa.s.sed and Christmas eve came. The weather continued clear and surpa.s.singly fine. It was ideal weather for trapping, with no new snow to clog the traps and interfere with the hunters in their work. The atmosphere was transparent and crisp, and as it entered the lungs stimulated the body like a tonic, giving new life and buoyancy and action to the limbs. The sun never ventured far from the horizon now and the cold grew steadily more intense and penetrating. The river had long ago been chained by the mighty Frost King and over the earth the snow lay fully six feet deep where the wind had not drifted it away.
A full hour before sunset d.i.c.k and Ed, in high good humour at the prospect of the holiday they had planned, arrived at the river tilt.
They came together expecting to find Bob and Bill awaiting them there, but the shack was empty.
"We"ll be havin" th" tilt snug an" warm for th" lads when they comes,"
said d.i.c.k, as he went briskly to work to build a fire in the stove "You get some ice t" melt for th" tea, Ed. Th" lads"ll be handy t"
gettin" in now, an" when they comes supper"ll be pipin" hot for un."
Ed took an axe and a pail to the river where he chopped out pieces of fine, clear ice with which to fill the kettle. When he came back d.i.c.k had a roaring fire and was busy preparing partridges to boil.
Pretty soon Bill arrived, and they gave him an uproarious greeting. It was the first time Bill and Ed had met since they came to their trails in the fall, and the two friends were as glad to see each other as though they had been separated for years.
"An" how be un now, Bill, an" how"s th" fur?" asked Ed when they were seated.
"Fine," replied Bill. "Fur"s been fine th" year. I has more by now "an I gets all o" last season, an" one silver too."