"Aye, mother, I knows, an" I _is_ glad--oh, _so_ glad t" know I"s t"
be well again," said Emily very earnestly. "But," she added, "I"m thinkin" "twould be so fine if you or daddy were goin" wi" me. Bob were countin" on un so--I minds how Bob were countin" on my goin"--an"
he"s not here t" know about un--an" I feels wonderful bad when I thinks of un."
Of course it was quite out of the question for either the father or the mother to go with her, for that would more than double the expense and could not be afforded. There was no certainty as to how much would be coming to them after Bob"s share of the furs were sold. This could not be estimated even approximately for they had not so much as seen the pelts yet. Richard, grown somewhat pessimistic with the years of ill fortune, even doubted if, after Bob"s debt to Mr. MacDonald was paid, there would be sufficient left to reimburse Douglas for the money he had agreed to advance to meet Emily"s expenses. "But then,"
he said, "I suppose "twill work out somehow."
At last the great storm came that opened the rivers and smashed the bay ice into bits, and when the fury of the wind was spent and the rain ceased the sun came out with a new warmth that bespoke the summer close at hand. The tide carried the splintered ice to the open sea, wild geese honked overhead in their northern flight, seals played in the open water, and the loon"s weird laugh broke the wilderness silence. The world was awakening from its long slumber, and summer was at hand.
Tom Black kept his word, and when the ice was gone brought Bessie over in his boat to stay with Emily until she should go to the hospital. It was a beautiful, sunny afternoon when they arrived and Bessie brought a good share of the sunshine into the cabin with her.
"Oh, Bessie!" cried Emily, as her friend burst into the room. "I were thinkin" you"d not be comin", Bessie! Oh, "tis fine t" have you come!"
Tom remained the night, and he and Bessie cheered up the Grays, for it had been a lonely, monotonous period since their last visit, and never a caller save Douglas had they had.
Time, the great healer of sorrow, had somewhat mitigated the shock of Bob"s disappearance, and had reconciled them to some extent to his loss. But now the sore was opened again when, one day, a grave was dug in the spruce woods behind the cabin, and the coffin, which had been resting upon the scaffold since January, was taken down and reverently lowered into the earth by Richard and Douglas. Mrs. Gray, though still firm in the intuitive belief that her boy lived, wept piteously when the earth clattered down upon the box and hid it forever from view.
"I knows "tis not Bob," she sobbed, "but where is my lad? What has become o" my brave lad?"
Bessie, with wet eyes, comforted her with soothing words and gentle caresses.
Richard and Douglas did their work silently, both certain beyond a doubt that it was Bob they had laid to rest.
Nothing was said to Emily of the burial. That would have done her no good and they did not wish to give her the pain that it would have caused.
The days were rapidly lengthening, and the sun coming boldly nearer the earth was tempering and mellowing the atmosphere, and every pleasant afternoon a couch was made for Emily out of doors, where she could bask in the sunshine, and breathe the air charged with the perfume of the spruce and balsam forest above, and drink in the wild beauties of the wilderness about her.
Here she lay, alone, one day late in June while her mother and Bessie washed the dinner dishes before Bessie came out to join her, and her father and Douglas, who had come over to dinner, smoked their pipes and chatted in the house. She was listening to the joyous song of a robin, that had just returned from its far-off southland pilgrimage, and was thinking as she listened of the long, long journey that she was soon to take. Her heart was sad, for it was a sore trial to be separated all the summer from her father and mother and never see them once.
She looked down the bight out towards the broader waters of the bay, for that was the way she was to go. Suddenly as she looked a boat turned the point into the bight. It was a strange boat and she could not see who was in it, but it held her attention as it approached, for a visitor was quite unusual at this time of the year. Presently the single occupant stood up in the boat, to get a better view of the cabin.
"Bob! _Bob!_ BOB!" shouted Emily, quite wild and beside herself. "Mother! Father! Bob is coming! _Bob_ is coming!"
Those in the house rushed out in alarm, for they thought the child had gone quite mad, but when they reached her they, too, seemed to lose their reason. Mrs. Gray ran wildly to the sandy sh.o.r.e where the boat would land, extending her arms towards it and fairly screaming,
"My lad! Oh, my lad!"
Bessie was at her heels and Richard and Douglas followed.
When Bob stepped ash.o.r.e his mother clasped him to her arms and wept over him and fondled him, and he, taller by an inch than when he left her, bronzed and weather-beaten and ragged, drew her close to him and hugged her again and again, and stroked her hair, and cried too, while Richard and Douglas stood by, blowing their noses on their red bandana handkerchiefs and trying to took very self-composed.
When his mother let him go Bob greeted the others, forgetting himself so far as to kiss Bessie, who blushed and did not resent his boldness.
Emily simply would not let him go. She held him tight to her, and called him her "big, brave brother," and said many times:
"I were knowin" you"d come back to us, Bob. I were just _knowin"_ you"d come back."
An hour pa.s.sed in a babble of talk and exchange of explanations almost before they were aware, and then Mrs. Gray suddenly realized that Bob had had no dinner.
"Now un must be rare hungry, Bob," she explained. "Richard, carry Emily in with un now, an" we"ll have a cup o" tea wi" Bob, while he has his dinner."
"Let me carry un," said Bob, gathering Emily into his arms.
In the house they were all so busy talking and laughing, while Mrs.
Gray prepared the meal for Bob, that no one noticed a boat pull into the bight and three men land upon the beach below the cabin; and so, just as they were about to sit down to the table, they were taken completely by surprise when the door opened and in walked d.i.c.k Blake, Ed Matheson and Bill Campbell.
The three stopped short in open-mouthed astonishment.
""Tis Bob"s ghost!" finally exclaimed Ed.
They were soon convinced, however, that Bob"s hand grasp was much more real than that of any ghost, and the greetings that followed were uproarious.
Nearly the whole afternoon they sat around the table while Bob told the story of his adventures. A comparison of experiences made it quite certain that the remains they had supposed to have been Bob"s were the remains of Micmac John and the mystery of the half-breed"s failure to return to the tilt for the pelts he had stolen was therefore cleared up.
"An" th" Nascaupees," said Bob, "be not fearsome murderous folk as we was thinkin" un, but like other folks, an" un took rare fine care o"
me. I"m thinkin" they"d not be hurtin" white folks an" white folk don"t hurt _they_."
Finally the men sat back from the table for a smoke and chat while the dishes were being cleared away by Mrs. Gray and Bessie.
"Now I were sure thinkin" Bob were a ghost," said Ed, as he lighted his pipe with a brand from the stove, "and "twere scarin" me a bit. I never seen but one ghost in my life and that were----"
"We"re not wantin" t" hear that ghost yarn, Ed," broke in d.i.c.k, and Ed forgot his story in the good-natured laughter that followed.
The home-coming was all that Bob had hoped and desired it to be and the arrival of his three friends from the trail made it complete. His heart was full that evening when he stepped out of doors to watch the setting sun. As he gazed at the spruce-clad hills that hid the great, wild north from which he had so lately come, the afterglow blazed up with all its wondrous colour, glorifying the world and lighting the heavens and the water and the hills beyond with the radiance and beauty of a northern sunset. The spirit of it was in Bob"s soul, and he said to himself,
""Tis wonderful fine t" be livin", an" "tis a wonderful fine world t"
live in, though "twere seemin" hard sometimes, in the winter. An" th"
comin" home has more than paid for th" trouble I were havin" gettin"
here."
XXVII
THE CRUISE TO ST. JOHNS
When Bob and the two Eskimos sailed the _Maid of the North_ up the bay from Fort Pelican it was found advisable to run the schooner to an anchorage at Kenemish where she could lie with less exposure to the wind than at Wolf Bight. The moment she was made snug and safe Bob went ash.o.r.e to Douglas Campbell"s cabin, where he learned that his old friend had gone to Wolf Bight early that morning to spend the day.
The lad"s impatience to reach home would brook no waiting, and so, leaving Netseksoak and Aluktook in charge of the vessel, he proceeded alone in a small boat, reaching there as we have seen early in the afternoon.
What to do with the schooner now that she had brought him safely to his destination was a problem that Bob had not been able to solve. The vessel was not his, and it was plainly his duty to find her owner and deliver the schooner to him, but how to go about it he did not know.
That evening when the candles were lighted and all were gathered around the stove, he put the question to the others.
"I"m not knowin" now who th" schooner belongs to," said he, "an" I"m not knowin" how t" find th" owner, I"m wonderin" what t" do with un."
"Tis some trader owns un I"m thinkin"," Mrs. Gray suggested.