VI
THE TRAPPING PARTNER
"Th' wind's freshenin', and she feels like snow. I'm expectin' a whitecamp tonight," observed Indian Jake when they had passed out of TheJug and out of the view of the cabin.
"She does feel like snow," said David, "but it's a good wind for us,and if she holds where she is we'll make a fine run up Grand Lake."
"Yes," agreed Indian Jake, blowing a mouthful of smoke from his pipeand watching its direction. "She's east nor'east now, and fine. We'dbetter not lose any time stopping at the post."
"No," said David, "not with a fine breeze like this. Pop was four daysgettin' up th' Lake last year, with contrary winds."
It was a somber morning. Gray clouds hung low and the wind was dampand cold, but it was a fair wind, and before nine o'clock they cameabreast the post. Zeke Hodge saw them and hailed and they answered hishail, but passed on into the river without stopping, at which Zekemarveled, for he had never before known a boat to pass the postwithout pausing at least for a brief call.
The tide was nearing flood, and this was vastly to their advantage incounteracting the river current, and the five miles to Grand Lake wasaccomplished in an hour.
"Oh, 'tis grand!" exclaimed Andy when the long vista of lake appearedbefore them.
"Aye," said David, "'tis that, and that's why she's called Grand Lake,I'm thinkin'."
At the eastern end of the lake, where they entered it, both thenorthern and southern shores were lined with low hills wooded to theirsummits with spruce, white birch, balsam fir, and tamarack, thefoliage of the latter making golden splotches in the green. Some fewmiles up the lake the wooded hills on its southern shore gave place tonaked mountains, with perpendicular cliffs rising sheer from thewater's edge for several hundred feet, grim and austere, but at thesame time giving to the landscape a touch of grandeur and majesticbeauty. In the far distance to the westward high peaks in anopalescent haze lifted their summits against the sky.
The vast and boundless wilderness inhabited by no human being otherthan a few wandering Indians, lay in somber and impressive silence,just as God had fashioned it untold ages before, untouched andunmarred by the hand of man. There were no smoking chimneys, no uglybrick walls, no shrieking locomotives; no sound to break the silencesave the cry of startled gulls, soaring overhead, the honk of a flockof wild geese in southern flight, and the waves lapping upon therocky shore. The air was fresh and spicy with the odor of balsam andother forest perfumes. It was a wilderness redolent with suggestionsof mysteries hidden in the bosom of its unconquered and unmeasuredsolitudes and waiting for discovery.
"It makes me feel wonderful strange--t' think I'm goin' in there,"remarked Andy presently, gazing away over the dark forest whichreceded to the northward over rolling hills, "and t' think we're t' begone till th' break-up next spring, an' won't see Pop or Margaret orDoctor Joe for so long."
"Not gettin' sorry you're goin', now, be you?" grinned Indian Jake.
"No, I'm not gettin' sorry. Not me! I'm wonderful glad t' be goin',"Andy asserted stoutly.
"Better not think about the folks and home too much, or you'll begettin' homesick," counseled Indian Jake.
"I'm not like t' get homesick!" and Andy's voice suggested thatnothing in the world was less likely to happen.
"Ah, but you'll have a sore trial, lads," said Indian Jake. "Wait tillwe're deep in th' trails, and winter settles, and th' wind cuts t' th'bone, and th' shiftin' snow blinds you, and th' cold's like t' freezeyour blood, and t' have t' fight it for your very life. _Then's_ th'time that you'll be tried out for th' stuff that's in you--both ofyou. And you can't rest then, for there's fur t' be got out of th'traps, and there's no one t' get it but you, and you _got_ t' get it.Then, lads, you'll be thinkin' of your warm snug home at The Jug, withits big stove, and your cozy nest of a bed. There's no rest for thetrapper that makes a good hunt, lads. 'Tis the man that rests when th'storms blow wild and the cold settles bitter and fierce, that makesth' poor hunt. 'Tis always so with work."
"We'll stick to un, and make th' good hunt," David declared stoutly.
"Aye, we'll stick to un, and not be gettin' homesick, either. We'llhave plenty o' grit," said Andy.
"That's the way to talk, lads!" said Indian Jake heartily. "Stick toit, lads, and have grit a plenty, and you'll make a good hunt."
"But I was thinkin' o' what a wonderful big place 'tis in there," andAndy was again gazing at the forest-clad hills.
"'Tis a _big_ place," said Indian Jake.
"Pop says," continued Andy, "that 'tis so big they's no end to un."
"Aye," agreed Indian Jake, "no end to un."
"And there'll be nobody but just us in there," and there was awe inAndy's voice.
"Just us," said Indian Jake.
Snow was falling when they made camp that evening in the shelter ofthe forest on the lake shore, and cozy and snug the tent was with aroaring fire in the stove, and the wind swirling the snow outside, andmoaning through the tree tops. Indian Jake had said little during theafternoon, but now as he fried a pan of pork by the light of asputtering candle, while David and Andy laid the bed of fragrantspruce boughs, he volunteered the information that they would be inthe Nascaupee River early in the morning.
"That's fine," said David. "We made a wonderful day's travel, now,didn't we?"
Indian Jake did not reply, and the boys, too, fell into silence, untilsupper was eaten and Indian Jake had lighted his pipe. Then Davidasked:
"Where were you livin' before you came to th' Bay, Jake?"
"South," grunted Indian Jake.
"Did your folks live there?" asked Andy.
"Yes," answered Indian Jake.
"Why don't yo bring un t' th' Bay t' live, now you're here?" askedAndy. "'Twould be fine t' have your folks t' live with you."
"Because I can't," replied Indian Jake, in a tone that implied he wasthrough talking.
"I'm wonderful sorry," sympathized Andy.
"It's too bad, now," said David.
Indian Jake grunted again, but whether it was a grunt of appreciationor of resentment that they should have asked the questions, they couldnot tell, and quietly they spread their sleeping bags and slipped intothem. They were to learn as the weeks passed that Indian Jake had adouble personality--that he was both an Indian and a white man--andthat he possessed traits of character peculiar to both.
It was Andy's first night in camp, and for a time he lay awakewondering if Jamie and his father and Margaret were very lonelywithout him and David. And then he fell to listening to the wind andthe crackling fire in the stove, and to watching in the dim light ofthe candle the dark outline of Indian Jake's figure crouched beforethe stove and silently smoking. The half-breed's face with its beakednose was never a pleasant thing to see, and now it looked unusuallysinister and forbidding to Andy. Presently it began to fade, and agreat black wolf took its place, and Andy dreamed that the wolf wascrouching over him and David, ready to devour them.
He awoke with a start. The candle light was out and all was darknessand strangely silent, with no sound save David's deep breathing andthe moan of wind through the trees. It was weird and lonely there inthe darkness, and when Andy thought of how long it would be before heand David returned to The Jug again, it seemed still lonelier.
"I must have plenty o' grit, and keep a stout heart, the way Jamie isdoing," he thought, and it gave him courage, and he slept again.