Читать книгу Snowdrift - James B. Hendryx - Страница 3

A PROLOGUE

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I

Murdo MacFarlane, the Hudson's Bay Company's trader at Lashing Water post, laid aside his book and glanced across the stove at his wife who had paused in her sewing to hold up for inspection a very tiny shirt of soft wool.

"I tell you it's there! It's bound to be there," he announced with conviction. "Just waitin' for the man that's man enough to go an' get it."

Margot nodded abstractedly and deftly snipped a thread that dangled from a seam of a little sleeve. She had heard this same statement many times during the three years of their married life, and she smiled to herself as Molaire, her father, who was the Company's factor at Lashing Water, laid aside his well thumbed invoice with a snort of disgust. She knew her two men well, did Margot, and she could anticipate almost word for word the heated argument that was bound to follow. Without rising she motioned to Tom Shirts, the Company Indian, to light the great swinging lamp. And as the yellow light flooded the long, low trading room, she resumed her sewing, while Molaire hitched his chair nearer the stove and whittled a pipeful of tobacco from a plug.

"There ye go again with ye're tomrot an' ye're foolishness!" exploded the old Frenchman, as he threw away his match and crowded the swelling tobacco back into the bowl of his pipe. "Always babblin' about the gold. Always wantin' to go an' find out for ye'reself it ain't there."

"But I'm tellin' you it is there," insisted MacFarlane.

"Where is it, then? Why ain't it be'n got?"

"Because the right man ain't gone after it."

"An' ye're the right man, I suppose! Still lackin' of twenty-five years, an' be'n four years in the bush; tellin' me that's be'n forty years in the fur country, an' older than ye before ever I seen it. Ye'll do better to ferget this foolishness an' stick to the fur like me. I've lived like a king in one post an' another—an' when I'm old I'll retire on my pension."

"An' when I'm old, if I find the gold, I'll ask pension of no man. It ain't so much for myself that I want gold—it's for them—for Margot, there, an' the wee Margot in yon." He nodded toward the door of the living room where the year-old baby lay asleep.

Molaire shrugged: "Margot has lived always in the bush. She needs no gold, an' the little one needs no gold. Gold costs lives. Come, Margot, speak up! Would ye send ye're man to die in the barrens for the gold that ain't there?"

Margot paused in her sewing and smiled: "I am not sending him into the barrens," she said. "If he goes, I go, and the little Margot, too. If one dies, we all die together. But there must be gold there. Has not Murdo read it in books? And we have heard rumors of gold among the Indians."

"Read it in books!" sniffed Molaire. "Rumors among Injuns! Ye better stick to fur, boy. Ye take to it natural. There's no better judge of fur in all the traders I've had. Before long the Company'll make ye a factor."

As young Murdo MacFarlane filled and lighted his pipe, his eyes rested with burning intensity upon his young wife. When finally he spoke it was half to himself, half to Molaire: "When the lass an' I were married, back yon, to the boomin' of the bells of Ste. Anne's, I vowed me a vow that I'd do the best 'twas in me to do for her. An' I vowed it again when, a year later, the bells of Ste. Anne's rang out at the christening of the wee little Margot. Is it the best a man can do—to spend his life in the buyin' of fur for a wage, when gold 'twould pay for a kingdom lies hid in the sands for the takin'?"

Molaire's reply was interrupted by a sound from without, and the occupants of the room looked at each other in surprise. For it was February and the North lay locked in the iron grip of the strong cold. Since mid-afternoon the north wind had roared straight out of the Arctic, driving before it a blue-white smother of powder-dry snow particles that cut and seared the skin like white-hot steel filings. MacFarlane was half way across the floor when the door opened and a man, powdered white from head to foot, stepped into the room in a swirl of snow fine as steam. With his hip he closed the door against the push of the wind, and advancing into the room, shook off his huge bear-skin mittens and unwound the heavy woolen scarf that encircled his parka hood and muffled his face to the eyes. The scarf, stiff with ice from his frozen breath, crackled as it unwound, and little ice-chips fell to the floor.

"Ha, it's Downey, who else? Lad, lad, what a night to be buckin' the storm!" cried the trader.

Corporal Downey, of the Royal North-West Mounted Police, grinned as he advanced to the stove. "It was buck the storm to Lashin' Water post, or hole up in a black spruce swamp till it was over. She looks like a three days' storm, an' I prefer Lashin' Water."

"Ye're well in time for supper, Corporal," welcomed Molaire, "and the longer the storm lasts the better. For now we'll have days an' nights of real whist. We've tried to teach Tom Shirts to play, but he knows no more about it now than he knows about the ten commandments—an' cares less. So we've be'n at it three-handed. But three-handed whist is like a three-legged dog—it limps."

Neseka, the squaw, looked in from the kitchen to announce supper, and after ordering Tom to attend to the Corporal's dogs, Molaire clapped his hands impatiently to attract the attention of MacFarlane and Downey who were beating the snow from the latter's moose hide parka. "Come," insisted the old man, "ye're outfit'll have plenty time to dry out. The supper'll be cold, an' we're losin' time. We've wasted a hand of cards already."

"Is the gold bug still buzzin' in your bonnet, Mac?" asked Downey, as Molaire flourished the keen bladed carving knife over the roasted caribou haunch.

"Aye," answered the young Scotchman. "An' when the rivers run free in the spring, I'll be goin' to get it."

A long moment of silence followed the announcement during which the carving knife of Molaire was held suspended above the steaming roast. The old man's gaze centered upon his son-in-law's face, and in that moment he knew that the younger man's decision had been made, and that nothing in the world could change it. The words of Margot flashed through his brain: "If he goes, I go, and the little Margot, too. If one dies, we all die together." His little daughter, the light of his life since the death of her mother years before—and the tiny wee Margot who had snuggled her way into his rough old heart to cheer him in his old age—going away—far and far away into the God-knows-where of bitter cold and howling blizzard—and all on a fool's errand! The keen blade bit the roast to the bone, raised, dripping red juice, and bit again.

"Mon Dieu, what a fool!" breathed the old man, and as if in final appeal, turned to Corporal Downey, who had known him long, and who had guessed what was passing in his mind. "Tell him, Downey, you know the North beyond the barrens. Tell him he is a fool!"

And Downey who was not old in years but very wise in the ways of men, smiled. He liked young Murdo MacFarlane, but he was a Scotchman himself and he knew the hard-headedness of the breed.

"Well, a man ain't always a fool because he goes huntin' for gold. That's accordin'. Where is this gold, Mac? An' how do you know it's there?"

"It's there, all right—gold and copper, too. Didn't Captain Knight try to find it? And Samuel Hearne?"

"Yes," broke in Molaire, "an' Knight's bones are bleachin' on Marble Island with his ships on the bottom of the Bay, an' Hearne came back empty handed."

"That's why the gold is still there," answered MacFarlane.

"Where 'bouts is it?" insisted Downey.

"Up in the Coppermine River country, to the north and east of Bear Lake."

"How do you know?"

"The Injuns had chunks of it. That's what sent Knight and Hearne after it."

"How long ago?"

"Captain Knight started in 1719, an' Hearne about fifty years later."

"Gosh!" exclaimed Downey. "Ain't that figurin' quite a ways back?"

"Gold don't rot. If it was there then, it's there now. It's never been brought out."

"Yes—if it was there. But, maybe it ain't there an' never was—what then?"

"I talked with an Injun, a year back, that said he had seen an Injun from the North that had seen some Eskimos that had dishes made of yellow metal."

"He was prob'ly lyin'," observed Downey, "or the Injun that told him was lyin'. I've be'n north to the coast a couple of times, an' I never seen no Injuns nor Eskimos eatin' out of no gold dishes yet."

"Maybe it's because you've stuck to the Mackenzie, where the posts are. Have you ever crossed the barrens straight north—between the Mackenzie an' the Bay?"

"No," answered Downey, dryly, "an' I hope to God I don't never have to. You've got a good thing here with the Company, Mac. If I was you I'd stick to it, anyways till I seen an Injun with some gold. I never seen one yet—an' I don't never expect to. An' speakin' of Injuns reminds me, I passed a camp of 'em this forenoon."

"A camp of 'em!" exclaimed Molaire, in surprise. "Who were they? My Injuns are all on the trap lines."

"These are from the North somewheres. I couldn't savvy their lingo. They ain't much good I guess. They're non-treaty Injuns—wanderers. They wanted to know where a post was, an' I told 'em. They'll prob'ly be in to trade when the storm lets up."

That evening old Molaire played whist badly. His heart was not in the game, for try as he would to keep his mind on the cards, in his ears was the sound of the dull roar of the wind, and his thoughts were of the future—of the long days and nights to come when his loved ones would be somewhere far in the unknown North, and he would be left alone with his Company Indians in the little post on Lashing Water.

II

All night the storm roared unabated and, as is the way of Arctic blizzards, the second day saw its fury increased. During the morning the four played whist. There had been no mention of gold, and old Molaire played his usual game with the result that when Neseka called them to dinner, he and MacFarlane held a three-game lead over Downey and Margot. The meal over, they returned to the cards. The first game after dinner proved a close one, each side scoring the odd in turn, while the old Frenchman, as was his custom, analyzed each hand as the cards were being shuffled for the next deal. Finally he scored a point and tied the score. Then he glared at his son-in-law: "An' ye'd of finessed your ten-spot through on my lead of hearts we'd of made two points an' game!" he frowned.

"How was I to know?" MacFarlane paused abruptly in the midst of his deal and glanced in surprise toward the door which swung open to admit four Indians who loosened the blankets that covered them from head to foot and beat the snow from them as they advanced toward the stove. Three of them carried small packs of fur. The fourth was a young squaw, straight and lithe as a panther, and as she loosened the moss-bag from her shoulders, a thin wail sounded from its interior.

"A baby!" cried Margot, as MacFarlane made his way to the counter, his eyes upon the packs of fur. She stooped and patted her own little one who was rolling about upon a thick blanket spread on the floor. The squaw smiled, and fumbling in the depths of the bag drew forth a tiny brown-red mite which ceased crying and stared stolidly at the cluster of strange white faces. "What a terrible day for a baby to be out!" continued the white woman, as she pushed a chair near to the stove. Again the squaw smiled and seating herself, turned her back upon the occupants of the room and proceeded to nurse the tiny atom.

Meanwhile MacFarlane was trying by means of the Cree language to question the three bucks who stood in solemn line before the counter, each with his pack of fur before him. Downey tried them with the Blackfoot tongue, and the Jargon, while old Molaire and Tom Shirts added half a dozen dialects from nearer the Bay. But no slightest flicker of comprehension crossed the face of any one of them. Presently the young squaw arose and placed her baby upon the blanket beside the white child where the two little mites sat and stared at each other in owlish solemnity. As she advanced toward the counter MacFarlane addressed her in Cree. And to the surprise of all she spoke to him in English: "We buy food," she said, indicating the packs of fur.

"Where did you come from?" queried the trader. "An' how is it that you talk English an' the rest of 'em can't talk nothin'?"

"We come from far to the northward," she answered. "I have been to school at the mission. These are Dog Ribs. They have not been to school. I am of the Yellow Knives. My man was drowned in a rapids. He was name Bonnetrouge. He was a Dog Rib so I live with these."

"Why don't you trade at your own post?" asked MacFarlane, suspiciously. "Is it because you have a debt there that you have not paid?"

"No. We have no debt at any post. We are only a small band. We move about all the time. We do not like to stay in one place like the rest. We see many new rivers, and many lakes, and we go to many places that the others do not know. We have no debt at any post, we trade as we go and pay with skins for what we buy."

"One of them wanderin' bands," observed Downey. "I've run across two or three of 'em here an' there. They camp a while somewheres an' then, seems like, they just naturally get restless an' move on."

The squaw nodded: "The police is right. We do not like to stay and trap in one place. I have seen many new things, and many things that even the oldest man has not seen."

MacFarlane opened the packs and examined their contents, fur by fur, laying them in separate piles and paying for each as he appraised it in brass tokens of made beaver. The three bucks looked on in stolid indifference but MacFarlane noted that the eyes of the squaw followed his every movement.

As a general rule the agents of the Hudson's Bay Company deal fairly with the Indians in the trading of the common or standard skins, and MacFarlane was no exception. It was in a spirit of fun, to see what the squaw would do, that he counted out thirty made beaver in payment for a large otter skin.

The Indian woman shook her head: "No, that is a good otter. He is worth more." And with a smile the Scotchman counted ten additional tokens into the pile, whereat the squaw nodded approval and the trading proceeded. When at last it was finished the squaw took entire charge of the purchasing, pausing only now and then, to consult one or the other of the Indians in their own tongue, and in her selection of only the essentials, MacFarlane realized that he was dealing with that rarest of northern Indians, one who possessed sound common sense and the force of character to reject the useless trinkets so dear to the Indian heart.

While the bucks were making up their packs the squaw plunged her hand into the bottom of the moss-bag from which she had taken the baby, and drew out a single skin. For a long time she stood holding the skin in one hand while with the other she stroked its softly gleaming surface. MacFarlane and Molaire gazed at the skin in fascination while Margot rose from the blanket where she had been playing with the two babies, and even Corporal Downey who knew little of skins crowded close to feast his eyes on the jet black pelt whose hairs gleamed with silver radiance. In all the forty years of his trading Molaire had handled fewer than a dozen such skins—a true black fox, taken in its prime, so that the silvered hairs seemed to emit a soft radiance of their own—a skin to remember, and to talk about. Then the squaw handed the pelt to MacFarlane and smiled faintly as she watched the trader examine it almost hair by hair.

"Where did you get it?" he asked.

"I trapped it far to the northward, in the barren grounds, upon a river that has no name. It is a good skin."

"Did you trap it yourself?"

"Yes. I am a good trapper. My man was a good trapper and he showed me how. These are good trappers, too," she indicated the three Indians, "And all the rest who are with us. There are thirty of us counting the women and children. But we have not had good luck. That is all the fur we have caught," she pointed to the skins MacFarlane had just bought, "Those and the little black fox. When the storms stops we will go again into the barren grounds, and we must have food, or, if we have bad luck again, some of us will die."

"Why do you go to the barren grounds?" asked MacFarlane. "The trappin' is better to the eastward, or to the westward."

The squaw shrugged: "My man he had been to school a little, but mostly he had worked far to the westward along the coast of the sea—among the white men who dig for gold. And he heard men talk of the gold that lies in the barren grounds and northward to the coast of the frozen sea. So he went back to the country of his people, far up on the Mackenzie, and he told the men of the gold and how it was worth many times more than the fur. But the old men would not believe him and many of the young men would not, but some of them did, and these he persuaded to go with him and hunt for the gold. It was when they were crossing through the country of my people that I saw him and he saw me and we were married. That was two years ago and since then we have traveled far and have seen many things. Then my husband was drowned in a rapids, and I have taken his place. I will not go back to my people. They were very angry when I married Bonnetrouge, for the Yellow Knives hate the Dog Ribs. Even if they were not angry I would not go back, for my husband said there is gold in the barren grounds. He did not lie. So we will go and get the gold."

"There's your chance, Mac," grinned Corporal Downey, "You better throw in with 'em an' get in on the ground floor."

But MacFarlane did not smile. Instead, he spoke gravely to the woman: "An' have you found any gold in the barrens?"

The squaw shrugged, and glanced down at the babies. When she looked up again her eyes were upon the little fox skin. "How much?" she asked.

MacFarlane considered. Holding the pelt he stroked its glossy surface with his hand. Here was a skin of great value. He had heard many traders and factors boast of the black, and the silver grey fox skins they had bought at ridiculously low price—and they were men who did not hesitate to give full value for the common run of skins. Always, with the traders, the sight of a rare skin arouses a desire to obtain it—and to obtain it at the lowest possible figure. And MacFarlane was a trader. He fixed upon a price in his mind. He raised his eyes, but the squaw was not looking at him and he followed her glance to the blanket where the two babies, the red baby and the white baby—his own baby and Margot's, were touching each other gravely with fat pudgy hands.

He opened his lips to mention the price, but closed them again as a new train of thought flashed through his mind. How nearly this woman's case paralleled his own. The imagination of each was fired by the lure of gold, and both were scoffed at by their people for daring to believe that there was still gold in the earth to be had for the taking. Then, there was the matter of the babies——

When finally MacFarlane spoke it was to mention a sum three times larger than the one that he had fixed upon in his mind—a sum that caused old Molaire to snort and sputter and to stamp angrily up and down the room.

The squaw nodded gravely: "You are a good man," she said, simply. "You have dealt fairly. Sometime, maybe you will know that Wananebish does not forget."

Two hours later, when the price of the pelt had been paid and the supplies all made into packs and carried to the toboggans that had been left before the door, the Indians wrapped their blankets about them and prepared to depart.

As the Indian woman wrapped the baby in warm woolens, Margot urged her to remain until the storm subsided, but the woman declined with a smile: "No. These are my people. I will go with them. Where one goes, all go."

"But the baby! This is a terrible storm to take a baby into."

"The baby is warm. She does not know that it storms. She is one of us. Where we go, she goes, too."

As the Indians filed through the door into the whirling white smother the young squaw stepped to the counter for a last look at her black fox skin. She raised it in her hand, drew it slowly across her cheek, stroked it softly, and then returned it to the counter, taking deliberate care to lay it by itself apart from the other skins. Then she turned and was swallowed up in the storm as MacFarlane closed the door behind her.

"Ye could of bought it for half the price!" growled old Molaire, as his son-in-law returned to the card table.

"Aye," answered the younger man as he resumed his cards. "But the Company has still a good margin of profit. They're headin' for the barrens, an' if, as she said, they have bad luck some of 'em would die. An' you know who would be the first to go—it would be the babies. I'm glad I done as I did. I'll sleep better nights."

"And I'm glad, too," added Margot, as she reached over and patted her husband's hand, "And so is papa way down in his heart. But he loves to have people think he is a cross old bear—and bears must growl."

Corporal Downey grinned at the twinkle that appeared in old Molaire's eyes, and the game proceeded until Neseka called them to supper. MacFarlane paused at the counter and raised the fox skin to the light. And as he did so, a very small, heavy object rolled from its soft folds and thudded upon the boards. Slowly MacFarlane laid down the skin and, picking up the object, carried it close under the swinging lamp, where he held it in his open palm. Curiously the others crowded about and stared at the dull yellow lump scarcely larger than the two halves of a split pea. For a long moment there was silence and then MacFarlane turned to Corporal Downey: "What was it you said," he asked, "about sticking to my job until I saw an Injun with some gold?"

III

The north wind moaned and soughed about the eaves of the low log trading post on Lashing Water. Old Molaire rose from his place by the stove, crossed the room, and threw open the door. Seconds passed as he stood listening to the roar of the wind in the tree tops, heedless of the fine powdering of stinging snow particles that glistened like diamond points upon his silvery hair and sifted beneath his shirt collar. Then he closed the door and returned to his chair beside the stove. Corporal Downey watched in silence while the old man filled his pipe. He threw away the match and raised his eyes to the officer: "It was a year ago, d'ye mind, an' just such a storm—when that squaw came bringin' her black fox skin, and her nugget of damned gold."

"It would be about a year," agreed Downey, gravely nodding his head. "I made this patrol in February."

"It's just a year—the thirteenth of the month. I'll not be forgetting it."

"An' have you had no word?"

The old factor shook his head: "No word. They left in May—with the rivers not yet free of running ice. Two light canoes. Margot could handle a canoe like a man."

"You'll prob'ly hear from 'em on the break-up this spring. Maybe they'll give it up an' come back."

Molaire shook his head: "Ye don't know Murdo MacFarlane," he said, "He'll never give up. He swore he would never return to Lashin' Water without gold. He's Scotch—an' stubborn as the seven-year itch."

"I'm Scotch," grinned Downey, hoping to draw the old man into an argument and turn his thoughts from the absent ones. But he would not be drawn. For a long time he smoked in silence while outside the wind howled and moaned and sucked red flames high into the stovepipe.

"She'd be two years old, now," Molaire said, "An' maybe talkin' a bit. Maybe they've taught her to say grand-père. Don't you think she might be talkin' a little?"

"I don't know much about 'em. Do they talk when they're two?"

The old factor pondered: "Why—it seems to me she did—the other Margot. But—it's a long time ago—yet it seems like yesterday. I'm gettin' old an' my memory plays me tricks. Maybe it was three, instead of two when she begun to say words. D'ye mind, Downey, a year ago we played whist?"

"Two-handed cribbage is all right," suggested the Corporal. But the old man shook his head and for a long, long time the only sound in the room was the irregular tapping of contracting metal as the fire died down unheeded in the stove. The old man's pipe went out and lay cold in his hand. The bearded chin sagged forward onto the breast of his woolen shirt and his eyes closed. Beyond the stove Corporal Downey drowsed in his chair.

Suddenly the old man raised his head: "What was that?" he asked sharply.

Downey listened with his eyes on the other's face. "I hear nothing," he answered, "but the booming of the wind."

The peculiar startled look died out of Molaire's eyes: "Yes," he answered, "It is the wind. I must have be'n dozin'. But it sounded like bells. I've heard the bells of Ste. Ann's boom like that—tollin'—when some one—died." Stiffly he rose from his chair and fumbled upon the counter for a candle which he handed to Downey. "We'll be goin' to bed, now," he said, "It's late."

IV

Upon a bunk built against the wall of a tiny cabin of logs five hundred miles to the northward of Lashing Water post the sick woman turned her head feebly and smiled into the tear-dimmed eyes of the man who leaned over her: "It's all right, Murdo," she murmured, "The pain in my side seems better. I think I slept a little."

Murdo MacFarlane nodded: "Yes, Margot, you have been asleep for an hour. In a few days, now, I'm thinkin' you'll be sittin' up, an' in a week's time you'll be on your feet again."

The woman's eyes closed, and by the tightening of the drawn lips her husband knew that she was enduring another paroxysm of the terrible pain. Outside, the wind tore at the eaves, the sound muffled by its full freighting of snow. And on the wooden shelf above the man's head the little alarm clock ticked brassily.

Once more Margot's eyes opened and the muscles of the white pain-racked face relaxed. The breath rushed in quick jerky stabs between the parted lips that smiled bravely. "We are not children, Murdo—you and I," she whispered. "We must not be afraid to face—this thing. We have found much happiness together. That will be ours always. Nothing can rob us of that. We have had it. And now you must face a great unhappiness. I am going to die. In your eyes I have seen that you, too, know this—when you thought I slept. To-day—to-night—not later than to-morrow I must go away. I am not afraid to go—only sorry. We would have had many more years of happiness, Murdo—you—and I—and the little one—" The low voice faltered and broke, and the dark eyes brimmed with tears.

The man's hands clenched till the nails bit deep into the palms. A great dry sob shook the drooped shoulders: "God!" he breathed, hoarsely, "An' it's all my fault for bringin' you into this damned waste of snow an' ice, an' bitter cold!"

"No, Murdo, it is not your fault. I was as anxious to come as you were. I am a child of the North, and I love the North. I love its storms and its sunshine. I love even the grim cruelty of it—its relentless snuffing out of lives in the guarding of its secrets. Strong men have gone to their death fighting it, and more men will go—why then should not I, who am a woman, go also? But, it would have been the same if we had stayed at Lashing Water. I know what this sickness is. I have seen men die of it before—Nash, of the Mounted—and Nokoto, a Company Indian. It is the appendicitis, and no doctor could have got to Lashing Water in time, any more than he could have got here. They sent the fastest dog-team on the river when Nash was sick, and before the doctor came he was dead. It is not your fault, my husband. It is no one's fault. There is a time when each of us must die. My time is now. That is all." She ceased speaking, and with an effort that brought little beads of cold sweat to her forehead, she raised herself upon her elbow and pointed a faltering forefinger toward the little roughly made crib that stood close beside the bunk. "Promise me, Murdo," she gasped, "promise me upon your soul that you will see—that—she—that she shall go to school! More than I have gone, for there are many things I do not know. I have read in books things I do not understand."

"Aye, girl," the deep voice of MacFarlane rumbled through the room as he eased his wife back onto the pillow, "I promise."

The dark eyes closed, the white face settled heavily onto the pillow, and as MacFarlane bent closer he saw that the breathing was peaceful and regular. It was as though a great load had been lifted from her mind, and she slept. With her hand still clasped in his the man's tired body sagged forward until his head rested beside hers.

MacFarlane awoke with a start. Somewhere in the darkness a small voice was calling: "Mamma! Daddy! I cold!" For a moment the man lay trying to collect his befuddled senses. "Just a minute, baby," he called, "Daddy's comin'." As he raised to a sitting posture upon the edge of the bunk his fingers came in contact with his wife's hand—the hand that he suddenly remembered had been clasped in his. Rapidly his brain cleared. He must have fallen asleep. The fire had burned itself out in the stove and he shivered in the chill air. Margot's hand must have slipped from his clasp as they slept. It was too cold for her hand to lie there on top of the blankets, and her arm protected only by the sleeve of her nightgown. He would slip it gently beneath the covers and then build up a roaring fire.

A low whimpering came from the direction of the crib: "Daddy, I cold."

"Just a minute, baby, till daddy lights the light." He reached for the hand that lay beside him there in the darkness. As his fingers clutched it a short, hoarse cry escaped him. The hand was icy cold—too cold for even the coldness of the fireless room. The fingers yielded stiffly beneath his palm and the arm lay rigid upon the blanket.

MacFarlane sprang to his feet and as he groped upon the shelf for matches his body was shaken by great dry sobs that ended in low throaty moans. Clumsily his trembling fingers held the tiny flame to the wick of the candle, and as the light flickered a moment and then burned clear, he crossed to the crib where the baby had partly wriggled from beneath her little blankets and robes. Wrapping her warmly in a blanket, he drew the rest of the covers over her.

"I want to get in bed with mamma," came plaintively from the small bundle.

MacFarlane choked back a sob: "Don't, don't! little one," he cried, then lowering his voice to a hoarse whisper, he bent low over the crib. "S-h-s-h, don't disturb mamma. She's—asleep."

"I want sumpin' to eat. I want some gravy and some toast."

"Yes, you wait till daddy builds the fire an' then we'll be nice an' warm, an' daddy'll get supper."

Silently MacFarlane set about his work. He kindled a fire, put the teakettle on, and warmed some caribou gravy, stirring it slowly to prevent its scorching while he toasted some bread upon the top of the stove. Once or twice he glanced toward the bed. Margot's face was turned away from him, and all he could see was a wealth of dark hair massed upon the pillow. That—and the hand that showed at the end of the nightgown sleeve. White as snow—and cold as snow it looked against the warm red of the blanket. MacFarlane crossed and drew the blanket up over the hand and arm, covering it to the shoulder. Bending over, he looked long into the white face. The eyes were closed, MacFarlane was glad of that, and the lips were slightly parted as though in restful slumber. "Good bye—Margot—lass—" his voice broke thickly. He was conscious of a gnawing pain in his throat, and two great scalding tears rolled down his cheeks and dropped to the mass of dark hair where they glistened in the steady glow of the single candle like tiny globes of fire. He raised the blanket to cover the still face, lowered it again and crossed to the table where he laid out a tincup for himself and a little thick yellow bowl into which he crumbled the toast and poured the gravy over it. Then he warmed a tiny blanket, wrapped the baby in it and, holding her on his lap, fed her from a spoon. Between the slowly portioned spoonfuls he drank great gulps of scalding tea. There were still several spoonfuls left in the bowl when the tiny mite in his arms snuggled warmly against him. "Tell me a 'tory," demanded the mite. MacFarlane told the "'tory"—and another, and another. And then, in response to an imperious demand, he sang a song. It was the first time MacFarlane had ever sung a song. It was a song he had often heard Margot sing, and he was surprised that he had unconsciously learned the words which fell from his lips in a wailing monotone.

MacFarlane's heart was breaking—but he finished the song.

"I sleepy," came drowsily from the blanket. "I want to kiss mamma."

"S-h-s-h, mamma's asleep. Kiss daddy, and we'll go to bed."

"I want to kiss mamma," insisted the baby.

MacFarlane hesitated with tight-pressed lips. Then he rose and carried the baby to the bedside. "See, mamma's asleep," he whispered, pointing to the mass of dark hair on the pillow. "Just kiss her hair—and we—won't—wake—her—up." He held the baby so that the little pursed lips rested for a moment in the thick mass of hair, then he carried her to her crib and tucked her in. She was asleep when he smoothed the robe into place.

For a long time he stood looking down at the little face on the pillow. Then he crossed to the table where he sat with his head resting upon his folded arms while the minutes ticked into hours and the fire burned low. As he sat there with closed eyes MacFarlane followed the thread of his life from his earliest recollection. His childhood on the little hillside farm, the long hours that he struggled with his books under the eye of the stern-faced schoolmaster, his 'prenticeship in the shop of the harness-maker in the small Scotch town, his year of work about the docks at Liverpool, his coming to Canada and hiring out to the Hudson's Bay Company, his assignment to Lashing Water as Molaire's clerk, his meeting with Margot when she returned home from school at the mission—and the wonderful days of that first summer together. Then—his promotion to the position of trader, his marriage to Margot—step by step he lived again that long journey from Lashing Water to Ste. Anne's. For it was old Molaire's wish that his daughter should be married in the old Gothic church where, years before, he had married her mother.

MacFarlane raised his head and listened, his wide-staring eyes fixed upon the black square of the window—that sound—it was—only the moan and the muffled roar of the wind—but, for a moment it had sounded like the tone of a deep-throated bell—like the booming of the bells of Ste. Anne's. Slowly the man lowered his head to his arms and groped for the thread of his thought where he had left it. Lingeringly, he dwelt upon the happiness that had been theirs, the coming of the little Margot—the infinite love that welled in their hearts for this soft little helpless thing, their delight in her unfolding—the gaining of a pound—the first tooth—the first half-formed word—the first step. He remembered, too, their distress at her tiny ills, real and fancied. Then, his own desire to seek gold—not for himself, but that these two loved ones might enjoy life in a fullness undreamed by the family of a fur trader. He recollected Molaire's opposition, his arguments, his scoffing, and his prediction that by the end of a year he would be back at Lashing Water buying fur for the Company. And he recollected his own retort, that without the gold he would never come back.

And here, in this little thick walled cabin far into the barren grounds, he had come to the end of the long, long trail. MacFarlane raised his head and stared at the crib. But, was it the end? He knew that it was not, and he groped blindly, desperately to picture the end. If it were not for her—for this little one who lay asleep there in the crib, the end would be easy. The man's glance sought the rifle that rested upon its pegs above the window. It was out of the question to think of returning to Lashing Water, if he would—the baby could not stand five hundred miles of gruelling winter-trail. He could not keep her here and leave her alone while he prospected. He could not remain in the cabin all winter and care for her—he must hunt to live—and game was scarce and far afield. He shuddered at the thought of what might happen if he were to leave her alone in the cabin with a fire in the stove—or worse, of what might eventually happen if some accident befell him and he could not return to the cabin.

MacFarlane sat bolt upright. He suddenly remembered that a few days before, from a high hill some thirty miles to the westward, he had seen an Indian village nestled against a spruce swamp at a wide bend of a river. It was a small village of a dozen or more tepees, and he had intended to visit it later. Why not take the baby over there and give her into the keeping of some squaw. If he could find one like Neseka all would be well, for Neseka's love for the little Margot was hardly less than his own. And surely, in a whole village there must be at least one like her.

MacFarlane replenished his fire, and groping upon the shelf, found a leather covered note book and pencil. The guttered candle flared smokily and he replaced it with another, and for an hour or more he wrote steadily, filling page after page of the note book with fine lined writing.

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

Snowdrift

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