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“You stay right here an’ vait for me,” he told her, and went out of the waiting-room, hurriedly. But he opened the door again.
“If Hugo he come vhile I am avay, you tell him I pring youst two three tings from my voman for you. I’m back right avay. So long, ma’am!”
She was left alone for at least a quarter of an hour, and it reminded her of a long wait she had undergone in the reception-room of the hospital. Then, as now, she had feared the unknown, had shivered at the thought that presently she would be in the hands of strange people who might or not be friendly, and be lost among a mass of suffering humanity. Twice she heard the runners of sleighs creaking on the ground, and her heart began to beat, but the sounds faded away. Joe, the station agent, came in and asked her civilly whether she was warm enough, telling her that outside it was forty below. Wood was cheap, he told her, and he put more sticks in the devouring stove. After she had thanked him and given him the check for her little trunk he vanished again, and she listened to the telegraph sounder.
Stefan, returning, was hailed at the door of the store by Sophy McGurn.
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“Who’s the strange lady, Stefan?” she asked, most innocently.
“It’s a leddy vhat is expectin’ Hugo Ennis,” he answered.
“How queer!” said the girl, airily.
“Ay dunno,” answered the Swede. “Vhen Hugo he do a thing it ain’t nefer qveer, Ay tank.”
She turned away and Stefan stepped over to the depot and opened the door. Madge looked up, startled and again afraid. It was a relief to her to see Stefan’s friendly face. She had feared.... She didn’t know what she dreaded so much––perhaps a face repellent––a man who would look at her and in whose eyes she might discern insult or contempt.
The big Swede held an armful of heavy clothing.
“Ye can’t stay here, leddy,” he said. “You come ofer to my house since Ennis he no coming. Dese clothes is from my ole vomans. Mebbe ye look like––like de dooce in dem, but dat’s better as to freeze to death. An you vants a big breakfass so you goes vid me along. Hey dere! Joe! If Ennis he come you tell him come ofer to me, ye hear?”
A few minutes later Madge was trudging over the beaten snow by the side of her huge81companion. Her head was ensconced within the folds of a knitted shawl and over her thin cloak she wore an immense mackinaw of flaming hues whose skirts fell ’way below her knees. Over her boots, protestingly, she had drawn on an amazing pair of things made of heavy felt and ending in thick rubber feet, that were huge and unwieldy. Her hands were lost in great scarlet mitts. It is possible that at this time there was little feminine vanity left in her, yet she looked furtively to one side or the other, expecting scoffing glances. She felt sure that she looked like one of the fantastically-clad ragamuffins she had seen in the streets of New York, at Christmas and Thanksgiving. But the pair met but one or two Indian women who wore a garb that was none too æsthetic and who paid not the slightest attention to them, and a few men who may possibly have wondered but, with the instinctive civility of the North, never revealed their feelings.
As a matter of fact she had hardly believed in this cold, at first. The station agent’s announcement had possessed little meaning for her. There was no wind; the sun was shining brightly now; during the minute she had remained on the station platform she had felt nothing unusual. As a matter of fact she had82enjoyed the keen brisk air after the tepid stuffiness of the cars. But presently she began to realize a certain tingling and sharp quality of the air. The little of her face that was exposed began to feel stiff and queer. Even through the heavy clothing she now wore she seemed to have been plunged in a strange atmosphere. For an instant, after she finally reached Stefan’s house, the contrast between the cold outside and the warm living-room, that was also the kitchen, appeared to suffocate her.
A tall stout woman waddled towards her, smiling all over and bidding her a good-day. She helped remove the now superfluous things.
“De yoong leddy she come all de vay from Nev York, vhat is a real hot country, I expect,” explained Stefan, placidly and inaccurately. “Sit down, leddy, an haf sometings to eat. You needs plenty grub, good an’ hot, in dem cold days. Ve sit down now. Here, Yoe, and you, Yulia, come ofer an’ talk to de leddy! Dem’s our children, ma’am, and de baby in de grib.”
Madge was glad to greet the rosy, round-cheeked children, who advanced timidly towards her and stared at her out of big blue eyes.
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Hesitatingly she took the seat Stefan had indicated with a big thumb, and suddenly a ravenous hunger came upon her. The great pan full of sizzling bacon and fat pork; the steaming and strongly scented coffee; the great pile of thick floury rolls taken out of the oven, appeared to constitute a repast fit for the gods. Stefan and his family joined hands while the mother asked a short blessing, during which the children were hard put to it to stop from staring again at the stranger.
“And so,” ventured the good wife, amiably, “you iss likely de sister from Hugo Ennis, ma’am?”
Madge’s fork clattered down upon her enamel-ware plate.
“No,” she said. “I––of course I’m not his sister.”
“Excoose me. He don’t nefer tell nobody as he vas marrit, Hugo didn’t. Ve vas alvays tinking he vos a bachelor mans, yoost like most of dem young mans as come to dese countries.”
“But––but I’m not his wife, either!” cried Madge, nervously.
“I––I don’t yoost understand, den,” said the good woman, placidly. “Oh! mebbe you help grub-stake him vhile he vork at de rocks for dat silfer and you come see how he gettin’ along. Ve tank he do very vell.”
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“Yes, Hugo he got some ore as is lookin’ very fine, all uncofered alretty,” Stefan informed her. “Und it’s such a bretty place he haf at de Falls.”
The man doubtless referred to the scenery but Madge was under the impression that he was speaking of the house in which this Ennis lived. It was strange that he had said nothing to these people, who evidently knew him well, in regard to the reason of her coming. It was probably a well-meant discretion that had guided his conduct, she thought, but it had caused her some little embarrassment.
“In his letter Mr. Ennis said that I was to come straight to this place, to Carcajou. He told me that I would be taken to his house at Roaring River Falls, that I might see it. I––I suppose there is a village up there or––or some houses, where I may stay.”
Stefan stared at her, scratching his touzled yellow head, and turned to his wife, who was looking at him as she poised a forkful of fat bacon in the air, forgetfully.
“Maybe de leddy means Papineau’s,” he said. “But if Hugo Ennis he say for her to come then it is all right, sure. Hugo vould do only vhat is right. He is my friend. He safe my life. So if he don’t turn up by de time ve finish breakfast I hitch up dem togs an’85take you dere real qvick. Mebbe he can’t come for you, some vay. Mebbe Maigan hurt or sick so he can’t pull toboggan. You vant to go, no?”
“I––I suppose so,” faltered the girl. “I––I must see him, as soon as possible, and––and....”
“Dat’s all right,” interrupted Stefan. “So long you vants to go I take you up dere. No trouble for to do anyting for Hugo and his friends. De dogs is strong an’ fresh. Ve go up there mighty qvick, I bet you, ma’am.”
Mrs. Olsen was not used to question her husband’s decisions. There seemed to be something rather mysterious about all this, but she was a placid soul who could wait in peace for the explanation that would doubtless be forthcoming. Anyway there was Papineau’s house about a mile away from the Falls, and the girl could find shelter there. She smiled at her guest pleasantly and urged her to eat more. For some minutes Madge’s appetite had forsaken her. But the temptation of good food in abundance overcame her alarm. She felt the comfort of a quiet, God-fearing, civil-spoken household. They were rough people, in their way, but they seemed so genuine, so friendly, so full of the desire to help her and put her at her ease, that she was86again reassured. Her hunger assailed her and she ate what she considered a huge breakfast, though Stefan Olsen’s family seemed to wonder at her scanty ability to dispose of the things they piled upon her plate. When large brown griddle-cakes were finally placed before her she could eat but a single one.
“Mebbe,” said the good woman, “in Nev York you ain’t used to tings like ve country people have.”
Used to them, forsooth! Indeed she had not been used to such things. She remembered the small bottles of bluish milk, the butter doled out in yellow lumps of strong taste, the couple of rolls that would make a meal, the cup of tea or coffee of pale hue, the bits of meat she could afford but once in several days. No, indeed she had not been used to such things, in the last two years.
“Vhen you stays in dis coontry for a vhiles den you can eat like a goot feller and not like a little bird,” Stefan assured her, comfortingly. “Den you get nice and fat, and red on de cheeks, and strong.”
Mrs. Olsen was still smiling at her, as she sat with plump hands folded on an ample stomach. The two children had become used to her and came near. A seat was given to her near the stove. Lack of sleep during the87two hard nights spent on the train caused her head to nod, once or twice.
“Mebbe you vants to rest a bit before ve goes,” suggested Stefan. “Dere’s plenty time if you like.”
But this roused her to alert attention. She must go, at once, for all this suspense and uncertainty must be ended. For some happy moments she had thought no more of the man who was expecting her. The comfort she had enjoyed had temporarily banished him from her thoughts.
“No––oh, no!” she cried. “I––I’ll be glad to leave as soon as you are ready to take me!”
At this moment she became keenly puzzled. She still had a very few dollars in her purse and wondered whether she ought to offer payment for her meal. Instinct wisely prompted her to keep the little pocketbook in her bag. They would undoubtedly have been surprised and perhaps offended.
Stefan drew on his great Dutch stockings and pulled his fur cap over his ears. An instant after he had left the room Madge heard loud barking. As she looked out of the window, scratching off a little of the frost that covered the panes, she saw the big Swede surrounded by five large dogs which he was hitching88to a toboggan. Then he got on the thing and the animals galloped away. A few minutes later he returned, with her small trunk lashed to the back part of the sled. He entered the house and took a straw-filled pillow and a huge bearskin and bore them out.
In the meanwhile Mrs. Olsen was helping Madge to resume her outlandish garb.
“Mebbe Mr. Ennis he not know you vhen you come so all wrapped up. Mebbe he tink it is a bear. Yes, put dis on too, you vants it all,” she declared. “It’s all of twelve mile out dere. If you not need de tings no longer, by and by you send ’em back. It’s all right. I no need ’em. Yoost keep ’em so long vhat you like. Didn’t Hugo Ennis tell you bring varm clothes vid you?”
“No,” said Madge. “I––I don’t think he spoke of them.”
“Mens is awful foolish some times,” asserted the good woman. “Dey pay no attention to tings everybotty knows all about. I tank Stefan he alretty now, so I say good-by and come again, ma’am. Alvays happy ter see you again vhen you comes, sure.”
The little girl came to Madge and rose upon her toes, for a kiss. More timidly the boy only proffered a hand. Mrs. Olsen kissed her pale cheek with a resounding smack.
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“Mens is fonny sometimes,” she said. “If tings isn’t all right like you expect mebbe at Papineau’s you come back here soon as you finish vhat you haf to do at Roaring Rifer. I haf anodder bed I can fix up in de back room real easy. Good py, ma’am, and look out careful for your nose!”
With this incomprehensible bit of advice Mrs. Olsen opened the door, swiftly, and closed it just as fast. Madge saw her smiling at her through the window-pane. Stefan made her sit down on the pillow, over which he had laid the bearskin, which he then wrapped over her shoulders and body and limbs.
“Now ve starts right off,” he told her. “Look out careful for your nose, leddy,” he also advised before calling to his dogs, who strained away at the long traces and trotted away, pulling heartily.
Wearing a pair of huge snowshoes Stefan followed or kept at the side of the toboggan. They left the road and struck a sort of path that led them up a hill. To her right hand she could see a vast expanse of frozen lake stretching away to the north. In some places the snow appeared to be quite level while in others it was deeply wrinkled in ridges caused by the winds. Presently the trees grew more90abundant along the way. They were silvery birches and the yellow ones, and poplars with slender branches ending in tiny bare twigs. The conifers still wore thick coats of dark green, excepting the tamaracks, that only carried a few long golden needles. These big trees were dotted over with great lumps of snow and ice which occasionally clattered down through the branches.
Madge looked up and the world seemed to assume a wondrous new beauty such as she had never known. The blue above was wonderfully clear and bright. Over the snow the sunlight was beating strongly, though it appeared to give little or no heat. Yet in the great patches of shadow through which they passed at times it felt colder still.
“Yoost keep on feelin’ yer nose,” Stefan told her, as the dogs rested for a moment at the top of a small hill. “You mustn’t let it get frost-bited, ma’am. It ain’t such a awful big nose you got, leddy, but you sure vouldn’t look so bretty if it drop off. Ha, ha!”
He laughed out loudly, apparently enjoying his ponderous joke greatly, but she felt that she must heed his advice and frequently carried the big mitt Mrs. Olsen had lent her to her face. They came to a great expanse of deep forest where, in places, the ground was91nearly bare of snow. The pulling was hard here and the dogs toiled along more slowly and panted as their cloudy breaths rose in steamy puffs. Madge admired them. They seemed such strong, willing animals. When they rested for a moment they would lie down and bite off the little balls of ice that formed beneath their toes, but at a word they would leap up again and throw themselves against their breast-bands, eagerly. In one difficult place Madge protested.
“The poor things are working so hard,” she said. “Couldn’t I get out and walk for a while? I don’t feel tired at all now, but your poor dogs do, I’m sure.”
“No, ma’am,” replied Stefan. “They ain’t tired. They yoost look so because they work hard. In dis country togs and men has to work hard or go hoongry. In a moment you sees how dey run again, vhen dey get good going. Dem togs can go dis vay all day and be fresh again to-morrow. Eferybody here knows vhat my team o’ togs can do, ma’am.”
It was evident that he was proud of them, and Madge decided that it was with good reason. They had started again and reached an expanse of burnt land, upon which the snow was crusted and the road was on a down grade. The team that had panted so hard,92with lolling tongues, threw itself into the collars and trotted off again, briskly, while Stefan followed with the short-stepped and effortless flat-footed run that covers so much ground in the north. The girl had to balance herself rather carefully at times, for the surface was by no means a level one. The toboggan swayed and bumped over hidden things that may have been stumps or rocks, or great buried ruts of the previous fall.
It was all so new and wonderful! A sense of enjoyment actually stole over her. But for the feeling of stiffness in her face she felt comfortably warm. Without ever meeting a soul, through a country that seemed utterly deserted of man, they went on for several miles. Once Stefan stopped the toboggan in order to show her tracks of a bear. It was wonderful to think that such animals roamed about her. The Swede told her that they were utterly harmless, that they always fled as soon as their keen eyes or sharp ears revealed the neighborhood of their enemies, the men who coveted their thick and long-haired hides worth a good many dollars. But she saw few living things; once there was a great snowy owl that rose heavily and then flew swiftly and in silence from a stump in abrulé, disappearing among the trees like an animated shadow,93yes, a shadow of sudden death to hares and partridges cowering beneath the fronds of wide-spreading conifers or in the great tangles of frost-killed long grasses.
It was altogether another world, strange and of rugged beauty. She felt as if she had been transported from the seething city into the vast peace of some landscape of moon or stars. Every bit of the old harsh world was now left behind and there was no longer any hint of cruelty in the snowy plains and hills and forest; nothing reminded her of despairing hunger, of the disbelief that had stolen upon her in the possibility of eking out much longer a life that was too hard to sustain. What if her errand seemed fantastic, unreal, since this new world also was like some illusion of a dream? The great stillness appeared to be friendly––the bent tops of snow-laden trees surely bowed a welcome to her––the shining sun and the pure air, in spite of bitter cold, drove the blood more rapidly through her veins and she no longer deemed life to be a mere form of suffering, such as she had undergone during the last year of her losing contest in the cruel, pitiless town.
Suddenly, as Stefan trudged behind in a narrow part of the old tote-road, a big white hare crossed the path ahead of the dogs, perhaps94seeking to escape the pursuit of some marten or weasel. At once the team broke into a headlong gallop, a helter-skelter pursuit, while their master roared at them unavailingly. Down a small declivity they flew. A moment later one side of the toboggan rose suddenly and the passenger felt herself being shot off into the snow. As the sled upset the little trunk lashed to its back caught into something and firmly anchored the whole contrivance, a few yards further on, and perforce the animals stopped with hanging tongues and steaming breaths.
An instant later Stefan was helping Madge arise. He looked at her in deep concern.
“Dem tamn togs!” he roared. “I hope you ain’t hurted none, leddy?”
With his assistance she rose quickly from the snow. It is possible that she had scarcely had time enough to become afraid. At any rate this new life that had come to her asserted itself, irresistibly, for there was something in its essence that would not be denied. In the heart that had been overburdened something broke, like a flood bursting its bonds. She threw up her head and uplifted her hands as laughter, pealing and rippling unrestrained, shook her slender frame from head to foot until tears ran down the now reddened cheeks95and turned to tiny globes of ice. She was making up for weeks and months of sombre thoughts, of despair, of shrewd suffering.
“Tank gootness!” roared Stefan. “First I tink dem togs yoost kill you dead. If so I take de pelts off ’em all alife, de scoundrels!”
“Oh! Please don’t punish them,” she cried. “It––it was so funny! Oh, dear! I––I must stop laughing! It––it hurts my sides!”
She ran off among the dogs and threw herself down on the crusted snow, passing one arm over a shaggy back. The animal looked at her, uncertainly, but suddenly he passed a big moist tongue over her face. Could he have realized that her saving grace might avert condign punishment? The girl petted him as Stefan turned the toboggan and its load right side up.
“You ain’t feared of dem togs,” he called to her. “And you vasn’t afraid vhen dey dump you out. You’s a blucky gal all right, leddy!”
A moment later she was again wrapped up in the bearskin and the dogs, loudly threatened but unpunished, owing to her intercession, resumed their journey. They had gone but a few hundred yards further when Madge smelled wood-smoke. A few minutes later96they came in sight of a low-built shack of heavy planks evidently turned out in a sawpit and resting on walls of peeled spruce logs. The dogs trotted toward it and a woman came out as Stefan stopped his team.
“I got a letter for you, Mis’ Carew,” he announced. “I got it dis morning at de post-office and bring it as I come along dis vay.”
He searched a pocket of his coat while the woman looked at Madge curiously.
“Won’t you come in and warm yourself a while?” she asked, civilly. “I can make you a hot cup of tea in a minute.”
“Thank you! Thank you ever so much,” answered Madge. “I––I think we’d better hurry on.”
Stefan had found the letter and handed it to Mrs. Carew.
“Wait a moment, Stefan, won’t you?” asked the woman. “There might possibly be some message you could take for me.”
The man lit his pipe while the woman went indoors. A moment later she came out, excitedly.
“Oh! Stefan,” she cried. “I’m so glad you came. My man’s away with the dogs, gone after a load of moose-meat, and won’t be back till to-morrow. And my daughter Mary’s very sick at Missanaibie and wants97me to come right over. Could you take me over to the depot in time for the afternoon train west? Are you going back to-day?”
Stefan pulled out a big silver watch and studied it.
“Yes, ma’am,” he answered. “I’m yoost goin’ over to Hugo’s wid dis leddy. If I go real smart I can get back in time, but I got to hurry a bit. So long! I come right soon back. Leave a vord for Tom und be ready de moment I come. I make it, sure!”
With this assurance he started off again, while the woman was still crying out her thanks. There was a long bit of good going now, which they covered at a good pace. Madge was thinking how helpful all these people were, how naturally they gave, how readily they asked for the help that was always welcome, as far as she could see. Yes, it was all so very different.
“Won’t the dogs be dreadfully tired,” she asked, “if you go back so soon?”
“No, leddy,” he asserted. “Twenty-four miles ain’t much of a trip. Dey make tvice dat if need come. And me too, sure t’ing!”
As she looked at him she knew that he spoke the simple truth. Even the people of this country seemed to be built differently. All of them looked sturdy, self-reliant, strong to endure,98and, more than anything, ready to share everything either with stranger or with friend. In spite of the weariness she felt after her long journey and of the ache in her bones that was coming from the unusual manner of her travelling, she felt that this was a blessed country, a haven of rest that held promise of wonderful peace. All at once they came in sight of a river, snow-shackled like all the others, except for black patches where the under-running flood so hurried in rapid places that the surface could not freeze. From such air-holes, as they are called, steam arose that was like the smoke of fires.
“What is that river?” she called.
“Dat’s de Roaring Rifer, leddy,” Stefan informed her. “Ve’s only a little vays to go now. Maybe five minute.”
At this moment, as in a flash, all of her vague and carking fears returned to the girl, and her hand went to her breast. It was only a little way now! And it was no dream––no figment of her imagination! The beginning of the real adventure was at hand! Truth flashed upon her. In a few moments she would see for the first time the man she was to marry. She blushed fiery red. Instinctively she looked about her, like some wild thing vainly seeking for a way to escape impending peril. What would he be like? What would he think of her? Oh! She now knew that it had all been a frightful mistake! Her limbs shook with a sudden bitter coldness that had fallen upon her like one of the masses that became displaced from the great trees, and she could not keep her teeth from chattering. Then, in her ears, began to boom a strong continuous sound that was ominous, threatening.
Truth flashed upon her! In a few moments she would see for the first time the man she was to marry
Truth flashed upon her! In a few moments she would see for the first time the man she was to marry
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“What’s that?” she stammered, trembling.
“Dat’s de noise of dem big Falls of Roaring River,” answered Stefan.
An instant later, Madge never knew why, the dogs were snarling in a fight. In a moment Stefan was among them, wielding his short-handled and long-lashed whip. A trace was broken. By the time the damage was repaired and the dogs pacified some ten minutes or more had been wasted. The man looked at his watch.
“I ain’t got so much time left,” he said. “I got to hurry back for Mis’ Carew. Lucky ve’re most dere now.”
A few seconds after they had started again they came to an opening, towards which Stefan pointed, and the girl’s heart sank within her.
She saw nothing of the distant falls surrounded100by a growth in which every twig scintillated with the frost lavished by the river’s vapor. She never noticed the great circular pool with its deep banks, or the wonderful view, far across country, of mountains washed in pale blues and lavenders, of the sun-flooded bright expanse of open ground, partly fenced in with axe-hewn rails. She could only stare at a little shack, the smallest she had seen in that country, and at the thread of smoke coming from the length of stove-pipe protruding from the ice-covered roof, and to her it looked like the home of misery.
A few yards farther on the team stopped. From here the hut could only be faintly distinguished through a growth of birches and firs.
“You can get off de toboggan now, leddy,” Stefan told her. “I puts off your trunk too. Hugo he come and get it. I call to him.”
She rose to her feet, speechless, amazed, with fear causing a terrible throbbing in her throat. She would have protested but could not find her voice. As soon as Stefan had unlashed the trunk and put it down on the frozen ground he turned his team around.
“Oh! Hugo!” he bellowed. “Oh! Hugo! Here’s de leddy.”
For an instant there was no reply, but while101Stefan yelled again she saw, through a small opening in the interlaced branches, that the door opened. A huge dog came out and rolled in the snow, barking. The man waved a hand.
“I can’t vait a moment. Good-by, leddy, I must go. You tell Hugo why I hurry so.”
The man had jumped on the toboggan and he was already being borne away, swiftly, by his team of wild shaggy brutes that seemed never to have known a weary moment in their lives. And she stood there, at the foot of a great blasted pine, terror-stricken, wondering what further torture of mind and body the world had in store for her.
But for that hut the place was a frozen desert, with no other sign of man. And she was alone––alone with him––and the fierce-looking dog was now running towards her. She leaned back against the tree, feeling that without some support she must collapse at its foot.
102CHAPTER VWhen Gunpowder Speaks
Hugo Ennis, a man well under thirty, tall and spare of form, with the lithe and active limbs that are capable of hard and prolonged action, had stood for a time by the tough door of his little shack. It was a single-roomed affair, quite large enough for a lone man, which he had carefully built of peeled logs. Within it there was a bunk fixed against the wall, upon which his heavy blankets had been folded in a neat pile, for he was a man of some order. Near the other end there was a stove, a good one that could keep the place warm and amply sufficed for his simple cookery. The table was of axe-hewn cedar planks and the two chairs had been rustically designed of the same material. Between the logs forming the walls the spaces had been chinked with moss, covered with blue clay taken from the river-bank, above the falls. Strong pegs had been driven into the heavy wood and from them hung traps and a couple of guns, with spare snowshoes103and odd pieces of apparel. In a corner of the room there were steel hand-drills, heavy hammers, a pick and a shovel. Against the walls he had built strong shelves that held perhaps a score of books and a varied assortment of groceries. More of these latter articles had been placed on a swinging board hung from the roof, out of reach of thieving rodents.
He had been looking down, over the great rocky ledge at one side of his shack, into the big pool of the Roaring River, which at this time was but a wild jam of huge slabs of ice insecurely soldered together by snow and the spray from the falls. Beneath that jumbled mass he knew that the water was straining and groaning and swirling until it found under the thick ice the outlet that would lead it towards the big lake to the eastward. Although the middle of March was at hand there was not the slightest sign of any breaking up. He knew that it would take a long time yet before the snows began to melt, the ice to become thinner on the lakes and the waters to rise, brown and turbid with the earth torn from the banks and the sand ever ground up in the rough play of turbulent waters with rolling boulders.
Yet the coming of spring was not so very104far off now and the days were growing longer. It would take but a few weeks before the first great wedges of flying geese would pass high above him in their journey to the shallows of the Hudson’s Bay, where they nested in myriads. And then other birds would follow until the smallest arrived, chirping with the joy of the slumbering earth’s awakening.
It was a glorious country, he truly believed. The winter had been long but the hunting and trapping had kept him busy enough. The days had seemed too short to become dreary and he had slept long during the nights, seldom awakening at the rumblings of the maddened pent-up waters or the sharp explosions of great trees cracking in the fierce cold. But he was glad of the prospect of renewed hard work upon his claim, of promising toil to expose further the great silver-bearing veins of calcite that wound their way through the harder rock. He knew that his find was of the sort that had flooded the Nipissing and the Gowganda countries with eager searchers and delvers, and created villages and even towns in a wilderness where formerly the moose wandered in the great hardwood swamps and the deer were often chased by ravening packs of baying wolves.
His attention had reverted to the great105sharp-muzzled dog that had been crouching at his feet, and he bent down and began to pull out small porcupine quills that had become fastened in the animal’s nose and lips.
“Maybe some day you’ll learn enough to let those varmints alone, Maigan, old boy,” he said, having become accustomed to long conversations with his companion. “I expect you’re pretty nearly as silly as a man. Experience teaches you mighty little. Dogs and men have been stung since the beginning of the world, I expect, and keep on making the same old mistakes. Hold hard, old fellow! I know it hurts like the deuce but these things have just got to come out.”
Maigan is the name of the wolf, in some of the Indian dialects, and Hugo’s friend seemed but little removed from a wolfish ancestry. He evidently did his best to bear the punishment bravely, for he never whimpered. At times, however, he sought hard to pull his muzzle away. Finally, to his great relief, the last serrated quill was pulled out and he jumped up, placing his paws on the man’s shoulders, perhaps to show he held no grudge. After his master had petted him, an excitable red squirrel required his immediate attention and, as usual, led him to a fruitless chase. He returned soon, scratching at the boards, and106his master let him in and closed the door. A moment later the animal’s sharp ears pricked up; the wiry hair on his back rose and he uttered a low growl.
“Keep still, Maigan!” ordered his master. “Wonder who’s coming? Maybe one of Papineau’s young ones.”
The fire was getting low and he put a couple of sticks of yellow birch in the stove. A few seconds later he heard a shout that came from behind the saplings which, in some places, concealed the old tote-road from his view. No one but Big Stefan could bellow out so powerfully, to be sure. He opened the door and Maigan leaped out. In more leisurely fashion he followed and stopped, in astonishment, as he caught sight of the dog-team flying back towards Carcajou.
“That’s a queer start!” he commented. “First time I ever knew him not to stop for a cup of tea and a talk.”
He thought he saw something like a black box through the branches and went up. It must be something Stefan had left for him. He walked up the path in leisurely fashion. There was evidently no hurry. He was feeling a little disappointment, for he had become fond of Stefan during his long prospecting trip and would have been glad of a chat to107the invariable accompaniment of the hospitable tea-kettle. He had just made some pretty good biscuits, too. It was a pity the Swede wouldn’t share them with him. He reached the black box which, to his surprise, turned out to be a small corded trunk lying on the hard dry snow, with a cheap leather bag on top of it. He looked about him in wonder and stopped, suddenly, staring in astonishment at the form of a woman, shapeless in great ill-fitting garments too big for her. She was leaning back against the great bare trunk of the old blasted pine and the dog was skulking around her, curiously. Then he hurried towards her, calling out a word of warning to Maigan, who seemed to realize that this was no enemy. And as he came the woman, deathly pale, seemed to look upon him as if he had been some terrifying ghost. She put out her hands, just a little, as if seeking to protect herself from him.
“Are––are you Hugo Ennis?” she faltered.
“That’s my name,” he said. “Every one knows me around here. What––what can I do for you?”
“My––my name is Madge Nelson,” she Stammered. “I––I’m Madge Nelson from––from New York.”
“How do you do, Miss Nelson?” he said,108quietly, touching his fur cap. “You––I’m afraid you’ve had a mighty cold ride. What’s happened to Stefan to make him go back? Lost something on the road, has he?”
“I––I’m afraid I’m the only lost thing around here,” she said, seeking to hold back the tears that were beginning to well up in her eyes. “Oh! I think––I think I’m becoming mad!” she suddenly cried out, bitterly. “Is––is that your––your house, the––the residence you spoke of?”
“The––the residence!” he repeated. “And I spoke of it, did I? Well, I suppose that anything with a roof on it is a residence, if you come to that. Yes, that’s it, the little shack among the birches, and you’d better come in till Stefan gets back, for it’s mighty cold here and––and if you’re from New York you’re not used to this sort of thing. It’s the best I can offer you, but I really never thought it worth talking about. It’s the slight improvement on a dog-kennel that we folks have to be contented with, in these parts. Come right in; you look half frozen.”
“And––and that is the sort of place you’ve brought me to?” she cried, her eyes now flashing at him in anger.
“Well, it seems to me that it’s Stefan that brought you,” he replied, rather abashed.
109
“That––that’s only a mean quibble,” she retorted, hotly. “And––and where’s the town––or the village––and the other people, the friends who were to greet me?”
The young man was beginning to feel rather provoked at her questions.
“The nearest settlers are a short mile away,––the Papineaus, very decent French Canadians. Tom Carew’s shack you must have passed on your way here. The only village, of course, is Carcajou, and that’s twelve long miles away. But Mrs. Papineau is a real good old soul, if that’s where you expect to stop. A dozen kids about the place but they’re jolly little beggars. Her husband’s trapping now, I believe, but of course I’ll take you up there.”
At this she seemed to feel somewhat relieved. It was evident that she was in no great peril. Yet she looked again at his shack, with her lower lip in the bite of her teeth.
“You––you didn’t really believe I’d come,” she said, her mouth quivering. “You––you were just making fun of me, I see, with––with that residence and––and the ladies who were ready to welcome me. Where are they?”
Ennis was scratching his head, or the cap over it, as he stared again at her. He realized110that some amazing, terrible mistake must have been made, as he thought––or that this girl must be the victim of some dreadful misunderstanding, if not of a foul plot. He began to pity her. She looked so weak, so helpless, in spite of the anger she had shown.
“There––there are no ladies,” he said, lamely, “except Mrs. Papineau and Mrs. Carew. They’re first-rate women, both of ’em. And of course Mrs. Papineau is your only resource till to-morrow, unless Stefan is coming back for you.”
“He isn’t,” she declared. “I said nothing about going back.”
“That’s awkward,” he admitted. “You’ll tell me all about this thing later on, won’t you, because I might be able to help you out. But you’ll be all right for a while, anyway. I’ll take you there.”
“Please start at once,” she cried, desperately. “I––I can’t stay here for another instant.”
“I can be ready in a very few minutes,” he told her, quietly. “But won’t you please come over to the shack. I’m sure you’re beginning to feel the cold. You––you’re shivering and––and I’m afraid you look rather ill.”
She had insisted on Stefan’s taking back111some of the things she had borrowed from his wife, and had been standing there in rather inadequate clothing. Ennis pulled off his heavy mackinaw jacket.
“You must put this on at once,” he told her, gently enough, “and come right over there with me.”
Madge shrank from him, as if she feared to be touched by him, and yet there was something in the frank way in which he addressed her, perhaps also in the clear and unembarrassed look of his eyes, that was gradually allaying her fears and the fierce repulsion of the first few moments. Finally, chilled as she was to the very marrow of her bones, she consented to accept his offer and submitted to his helping her on with the coat.
“There’s a good fire in the shack just now,” he told her. “It’s absolutely necessary for you to get thoroughly warmed up before you start off again. A cup of hot tea would do you a lot of good, too, after that long ride on Stefan’s toboggan. It’s no joke of an undertaking for a––a young lady who isn’t used to such things.”
Madge was still hesitating. The suffering look that had come into her eyes moved the young man to greater pity for her.
“I––I give you my word you have absolutely112nothing to fear,” he assured her, whereupon she followed him meekly, feeling very faint now. She half feared that she might have to clutch at his sleeve, if her footsteps failed her, for she felt that at any moment she might stagger and fall. She gasped again as she looked at the shack they were nearing, but, as she beheld the scenery of the great pool, something in it that was very grand and beautiful appealed to her for an instant. Yet she felt crushed by it, as if she had been some infinitesimal insect beside that stupendous crashing of waters, before the great ledges whose tops were hirsute with gnarled firs and twisted jack-pines. She stopped for a moment, perhaps owing to her weakness, or possibly because of awe at the majesty of the scene.
“I just love it,” said the man. “It grows more utterly splendid every time one looks at it. See that mass of rubbish on the top of that great hemlock. It is the nest of a pair of ospreys. They come every year, I’ve been told. Last summer I saw them circling high up in the heavens, at times, and they would utter shrill cries as if they had been the guardians of the falls and warned me off. But we had better hurry in, Miss––Miss Nelson.”
For an instant she had listened, wondering.113This man did not speak like a common toiler of city or country. His manner, somewhat distant, in no way reminded her of the coarse familiarity she had often been subjected to in shop and factory. But a moment later such thoughts passed off and she followed him, resentfully, feeling that she was to some extent forced to submit to his will. As Ennis pulled the door open and held it for her to walk in, he looked at her keenly. He had suddenly remembered hearing that exposure to intense cold had sometimes actually disturbed the brains of people; that it had brought on some form of insanity. He wondered whether, perhaps, this had been the case with her? It was with greater concern and sympathy that he felt he must treat her. The vagaries of her language, the reproaches she seemed to think he deserved, were doubtless things she was not responsible for. And then she looked so weary, so overcome, so ready to collapse with faintness!
Madge entered the shack. It had been swept, neatly enough, and everything was arranged in orderly fashion, except some loose things piled up in one corner, out of the way. The little stove was glowing, and the draft was purring softly. The girl pulled off her mitts and held her reddened hands to it while114Hugo brought her one of his rough chairs. Then, without a word, he placed a kettle on the fire, after which he brought out a white enameled cup and a small pan containing some of his biscuits. After cogitating for a moment he also placed on the table a tin of sardines.
Madge had dropped upon the chair, and began to feel more unutterably weary than ever. The heat, close to the stove, became too great for her and she moved her chair to the table, a couple of feet away, and placed her arms upon it. Her head fell forward on them, and when, a few moments later, Hugo spoke to her and she lifted up her face he was dismayed as he saw the tears that were running down her cheeks. The man could only bite his lips. What consolation or comfort could he proffer? It was perhaps better to appear to take no notice of her distress. But the weeping of genuine suffering and unhappiness is a hard thing for a youth to see. The impulse had come to him to cry out for information, to beg her to explain, to question her, to get at the bottom of all this mystery. He was held from this by the renewed thought that her mind was probably affected. He might further irritate her or cause her still deeper chagrin. Even if he erred in this idea the115moment was probably ill-chosen. It would be better for her to tell her tale before others also. He would wait until after he had taken her over to Papineau’s. She looked so harmless and weak that the idea that she might prove dangerous never entered his head.
The kettle began to sing and a moment later the water was boiling hard.
“I can’t offer you much of a meal, Miss Nelson,” he said, seeking to make his voice as pleasant as possible. “You’ve probably never tried sour-dough biscuits. Mrs. Papineau’s are better, but you may be able to manage one or two of these. That good woman’s a mighty good cook, as cooking goes in these parts. Here’s a can of condensed milk; won’t you help yourself? You must really try to eat something. Do you think you could try a little cold corned beef? I have some canned stuff that’s not half bad. Or it would take but a moment to broil you a partridge I got yesterday. But I’ll open these sardines first.”
He went to work with a large jack-knife, but she thanked him, briefly, in a low voice, and refused to accept anything but the tea and a bit of the biscuit. She wondered why he didn’t also sit down to eat. It bothered her to see him hovering over her like some sort of116waiter. He was probably staring at her, when her head was turned, and enjoying his dastardly jest. When she thought of those letters she had received and of all they contained of lies, of unimaginable falsehoods, the man began again to repel her like some venomous reptile. She could have shrieked out as he came near. What an actor he was! What control he held over voice and face as he pretended to know nothing about her. His effort had been evident, from the very first instant they had met, to disclaim the slightest knowledge of her or of the reasons for her coming! She felt utterly bewildered. He answered to that name of Hugo Ennis and had admitted that this was Roaring River, as Stefan had also told her. Moreover, the big Swede knew perfectly well that she was coming and expected. In word, in action, in every move of his, this man was lying, stupidly, coarsely, with features indifferent or pretending concern. It was unbearable.
She turned and looked at him again, swiftly but haggardly. She would never have conceived the possibility of a man dissembling so, in letters first and lying again in every move and every tone of his voice. How could he keep it so tranquil and unmoved? Yet when he came near her again, insisting on117filling her cup once more, she seemed for an instant to forget the rough clothes, the mean little shack, the strange conspiracy of which she was the victim and which had aroused her passionate protests. Over the first mouthfuls of hot tea she had nearly choked, but she had found the warm brew welcome and its odor grateful and pleasant. It mingled in some way with the scent of the balsam boughs with which the bunk was covered and over which the blankets reposed. She had experienced something like this feeling in the hospital, the first time she had been an inmate of it. It was as if again she had been very ill and awakened in an unfamiliar and bewildering place. The great weakness she experienced was something like that which she had felt in the great ward, where the rows of beds stretched before her and at either side. Some were screened, she remembered, and held the poor creatures for whom there was no longer any hope. It was as if now a turn of her head could have revealed a white-capped nurse moving silently, deftly bringing comfort. Her hands had become quite warm again; she passed one of them over her brow as if this motion might have dispelled some strange vision.
The big dog, Maigan, came to her and laid118his sharp head and pointed cold muzzle on her lap, and she stroked it, mechanically. This, at any rate, was something genuine and friendly that had come to her. Again and again she passed her hand over the rough neck and head. At this, however, something within her broke again and her head fell once more on her arms as she sobbed,––sobbed as if her heart would break.
“I––I’m afraid you must have gone through a good deal of––of unhappiness,” faltered the man, anxiously. “It––it’s really too bad and I’d give anything if I could....”
But the girl lifted up her hand, as if to check his words. What right had a man who was guilty of such conduct to begin proffering a repentance that was unavailing, nay, contemptible? Did he think that a few halting words could atone for his cruelty, could dispel the evil he had wrought?
At this he kept silent again, during long minutes, appalled as men always are at the first sight of a woman’s tears. He felt utterly helpless to console or advise, and was becoming more and more bewildered at this interruption of his lonely and quiet life. Since she didn’t want him to speak he would hold his tongue. If she hadn’t looked so dreadfully unhappy he would have deemed her an infernal119nuisance and hurried her departure. But in this case how could a fellow be brutal to a poor thing that wailed like a child, that seemed weaker than one and more in need of gentle care?
Soon she rose from the table, determinedly, with some of her energy renewed by the food and hot drink.
“If you please, let us go now,” she told him, firmly.
“I’m entirely at your service,” he answered. “I think you had better let me lend you a cap. That thing you have on your head can hardly keep your ears from freezing. I have a new one that’s never been worn. Wait a moment.”
His search was soon rewarded. She had kept on but her inefficient little New York hat with its faded buds and wrinkled leaves and now tried to remove it. Her hands trembled, however, and the strain of travel had been hard. All at once, as she pulled away, her coiled hair escaped all restraint of pins and fell down upon her shoulders, in a great waving chestnut mass. At this Hugo opened the door and ran out, returning a couple of minutes later with the bag that had been left on the trunk.
“I––I expect you need some of your things,” he ventured.