Part 3 (1/2)

When he had finished he thrust the note book into his pocket and again buried his face in his arms.

V

Toward morning the storm wore itself out, and before the belated winter dawn had tinted the east MacFarlane set out for the Indian village. The cold was intense so that his snowshoes crunched on the surface of the flinty, wind-driven snow. Mile after mile he swung across the barrens that lay trackless, and white, and dead, skirting towering rock ledges and patches of scraggly timber. The sun came out and the barrens glared dazzling white. MacFarlane had left his snow-goggles back in the cabin, so he squinted his eyes and pushed on. Three times that day he stopped and built a fire at the edge of a thicket and heated thick caribou gruel which he fed by spoonfuls to the tiny robe-wrapped little girl that snuggled warm in his pack sack. Darkness had fallen before he reached the high hill from which he had seen the village. He scanned the sweep of waste that lay spread before him, its shapes and distances distorted and unreal in the feeble light of the glittering stars. He hardly expected a light to show from a village of windowless tepees in the dead of winter, and he strove to remember which of those vague splotchy outlines was the black spruce swamp against which he had seen the tepees. Suddenly the silence of the night was broken by the sharp jerky yelp of a stricken dog. The sound issued from one of the dark blotches of timber, and was followed by a rabble of growls and snarls. MacFarlane judged the distance that separated him from the vague outline of the swamp to be three or four miles, but the shrill sounds cut the frozen air so distinctly that they seemed to issue from the foot of the hill upon which he stood. A dull spot of light showed for a moment, rocketed through the air, and disappeared amid a chorus of yelps and howls. An Indian, disturbed by the fighting dogs, had thrown back the flap of his tepee and hurled a lighted brand among them.

Swiftly MacFarlane descended the slope and struck out for the black spruce swamp. An hour later he stood upon the snow-covered ice of the river while barking, snarling and growling, the Indian dog pack crowded about him. It seemed a long time that he stood there holding the dogs at bay with a stout spruce club. At length dark forms appeared in front of the tepees and several Indians advanced toward him, dispersing the dogs with blows and kicks and commands in hoa.r.s.e gutterals. MacFarlane spoke to them in Cree, and getting no response, he tried several of the dialects from about the Bay. He had advanced until he stood among them peering from one to another of the flat expressionless faces for some sign of comprehension. But they returned his glances with owlish blinking of their smoke reddened eyes. MacFarlane's heart sank. These were the people in whose care he had intended to leave his little daughter! Suddenly, as a ray of starlight struck aslant one of the flat b.e.s.t.i.a.l faces, a flash of recognition lighted MacFarlane's eyes. The man was one of the four who had come to trade a year before at Las.h.i.+ng Water.

”Where is the squaw?” he cried in English, grasping the man by the shoulder and shaking him roughly, ”Where is Wananebish?”

At the name, the Indian turned and pointed toward a tepee that stood slightly apart from the rest, and a moment later MacFarlane stood before its door. ”Wananebis.h.!.+” he called. And again, ”Wananebis.h.!.+”

”Yes,” came the answer, ”What does the white man want?”

”It is MacFarlane, the trader at Las.h.i.+ng Water. Do you remember a year ago you sold me a black fox skin?”

”I remember. Did I not say that Wananebish would not forget? Wait, and I will let you in, for it is cold.” The walls of the tepee glowed faintly as the squaw struck a light. He could hear her moving about inside and a few minutes later she threw open the flap and motioned him to enter.

MacFarlane blinked in surprise as she fastened the flap behind him.

Instead of the filthy smoke-reeking interior he had expected, the tepee was warm and comfortable, its floor covered thickly with robes, and instead of the open fire in the center with its smoke vent at the apex of the tepee, he saw a little Yukon stove in which a fire burned brightly.

Without a word he removed his pack sack and tenderly lifting the sleeping baby from it laid her on the robes. Then, seating himself beside her he told her, simply and in few words what had befallen him.

The squaw listened in silence and for a long time after he finished she sat staring at the flame of the candle.

”What would you have me do?” she asked at length.

”Keep the little one and care for her until I return,” answered the man, ”I will pay you well.”

The Indian woman made a motion of dissent. ”Where are you going?”

”To find gold.”

Was it fancy, or did the shadow of a peculiar smile tremble for an instant upon the woman's lips? ”And, if you do not return--what then?”

”If I do not return by the time of the breaking up of the rivers,”

answered the man, ”You will take the baby to Las.h.i.+ng Water post to Molaire, the factor, who is the father of her mother.” As he spoke MacFarlane drew from his pocket the leather notebook, and a packet wrapped in parchment deer skin and tied with buckskin thongs. He handed them to the squaw: ”Take these,” he said, ”and deliver them to Molaire with the baby. In the book I have instructed him to pay you for her keep.”

”But this Molaire is an old man. Suppose by the time of the breaking up of the rivers he is not to be found at Las.h.i.+ng Water? He may be dead, or he may have gone to the settlements.”

”If he has gone to the settlements, you are to find him. If he is dead--” MacFarlane hesitated: ”If Molaire is dead,” he repeated, ”You are to take care of the baby until she is old enough to enter the school at some mission. I'm Scotch, an' no Catholic--but, her mother was Catholic, an' if the priests an' the sisters make as good woman of her as they did of her mother, I could ask no more. Give them the notebook in which I have set down the story as I have told it to you. The packet you shall open and take out whatever is due you for her keep. It contains money. Keep some for yourself and give some to the priests to pay for her education.”

The squaw nodded slowly: ”It shall be as you say. And, if for any reason, we move from here before the breaking up of the rivers, I will write our direction and place it inside the caribou skull that hangs upon the great split stump beside the river.”

MacFarlane rose; ”May G.o.d use you as you use the little one,” he said, ”I'll be going now, before she wakes up. It will be better so.” He stooped and gazed for a long time at the face of the sleeping baby. A hot tear splashed upon the back of his hand, and he brushed it away and faced the squaw in the door of the tepee: ”Goodbye,” he said, gruffly, ”Until the rivers break up in the spring.”

The Indian woman shook her head: ”Do not say it like that,” she answered, ”For those were the words of my man when he, too, left to find gold. And when the river broke up in the spring he did not come back to me--for the grinding ice-cakes caught his canoe, and he was crushed to death in a rapids.”

VI

For four long nights and four short days MacFarlane worked at the digging of a grave. It was a beautiful spot he chose to be the last resting place of his young wife--a high, spruce-covered promontory that jutted out into a lake. The cabin and its surroundings had grown intolerable to him, so that he worked furiously, attacking the iron-hard ground with fire, and ice-chisel, and spade. At last it was done and placing the body of his wife in the rough pole coffin, he placed it upon his sled and locking the dogs in the cabin, hauled it himself to the promontory and lowered it into the grave. Then he shoveled back the frozen earth, and erected a wooden cross upon which was burned deep her name, and returning to the cabin, slept the clock around.