XVIII
SNOWBLIND
TIGHTER and tighter grew the grip of winter. As January advanced the days grew longer, and the weather became more bitterly and terribly cold. The great white, limitless wilderness was frozen now into a silence awful in its solemnity. Even the wild creatures of the forest feared the blighting hand of the frost king, and lay quiet in their lairs, and the traps yielded small returns for the tremendous effort put forth by the hunters. It seemed to David and Andy as they plodded the dreary trails during this period that they were the only living things in all the silent, solitary world.
Sudden and terrible, too, were the storms—so terrible that no man could have resisted exposure to them. And sometimes the trappers were held prisoners for days at a time in the tilts, for to have gone forth would have been to go to certain destruction.
This was a trying period. Idleness always breeds discontent, and the trappers chafed, and became moody, when storms interfered with the regular routine of their work. Following the Christmas celebration, Indian Jake lapsed into his customary habit of long, silent broodings, when he seemed to have no wish for companionship and was scarcely aware of the boys’ presence.
With the end of February and coming of March the cold gradually, though reluctantly, lessened. The animals began again to stir more actively and the traps to yield, as in earlier winter. There were still the storms to contend against, however. They came now with even less warning than formerly, and David and Andy found themselves in many a tight pinch, and had adventures a-plenty, but adventure is the daily portion of the trapper. They suffered with frost-bitten cheeks and noses now and again, but they never thought of this as a hardship. Every one who ventures forth in a Labrador winter expects sooner or later to have frost-bitten cheeks and nose, and seldom is he disappointed.
“I’m wishin’, now, I had my snow glasses here, but they’re down in th’ tilt,” remarked David one bright morning in early April when the snow, reflecting the sun rays, glistened with dazzling brilliancy.
“I’m wishin’ I had mine, too, but I didn’t bring un, either,” said Andy. “’Twas a bit hazy when we left th’ tilt, and I didn’t think I’d need un.”
“’Tis time t’ wear un now, and we mustn’t come out again without un, whether ’tis hazy or no. There’ll be a bad glare on th’ snow out on th’ mesh today,” David predicted.
“’Twon’t be long now till we strikes up th’ traps, will it?” asked Andy.
[Pg 167]
[Pg 168]
“Th’ fur’ll be good till th’ end of April, and we’ll strike up th’ end of April, whatever,” said David.
“I’m wonderin’ and wonderin’ how Pop’s leg is, and how th’ mist in Jamie’s eyes is. I’ll be wonderful glad t’ get home,” and there was longing in Andy’s voice.
“I hope Pop’s ’most well, and th’ mist isn’t gettin’ thicker. I been wonderin’ and wonderin’, too.”
“We got a fine lot o’ fur, Davy. Pop’ll be wonderful glad.”
“That he will. We’ve got ’most as much as Pop got last year.”
“With Pop’s share o’ Indian Jake’s, and with what Doctor Joe gets, I’m thinkin’ there’ll be plenty t’ pay for Jamie’s goin’ t’ have th’ great doctor cut th’ mist away and maybe t’ pay for part of next year’s outfit too.”
“Aye, plenty, but I has a wonderful strange feelin’ lately, Andy, about Indian Jake not tellin’ what fur he has. Indian Jake’s fine, though, and I take it ’tis just his way.”
“He don’t talk much, Davy.”
“No, he don’t talk much, and he never tells us what fur he’s gettin’. I wonders why?”
“I wonders why, now?”
Thus discussing Indian Jake’s strange behavior and stranger reticence, and conversing of home, a subject of which they never tired, they traveled on and out upon the dazzling white of the marsh. As David had predicted, the glare was intense, and when they reached the cluster of spruce trees where they were accustomed to boil their kettle for dinner at midday, Andy complained that his eyes pained him badly and he could not see aright.
“We’ll wait a bit, till th’ noon glare is past,” suggested David. “There’s plenty o’ time t’ get back t’ th’ tilt, with th’ long day now. My eyes hurt wonderful bad too.”
So they built up their fire and for an hour lounged upon a seat of spruce boughs they had arranged, holding their eyes closed, while they talked, to relieve them from the intense light reflected by the snow. The rest, however, was of no avail. The pain in their eyes grew steadily worse, and it was becoming more difficult to raise the lids, and presently David announced that they had best return to the tilt as quickly as possible.
“’Tis hard t’ see anything,” said Andy, as they set forth.
“’Tis snowblindness. We’ll go straight for th’ tilt,” suggested David, “and not stop t’ fix th’ traps.”
A wind was springing up and very soon the sky became overcast. In a little while snow began to fall. David in advance, Andy directly behind him, the two walked for a time in silence. At length David stopped.
“Andy, b’y, can you see th’ trail?” he asked. “My eyes is wonderful bad.”
“No,” said Andy, “’tis growing dark t’ me.”
The snow thickened as they plodded along, and the rising wind whirled it about in clouds.
“’Twill be a nasty night,” remarked David at the end of another hour.
“’Twill that,” agreed Andy.
“I’m glad we turned back when we did,” said David.
For a long time neither spoke. Both were stumbling. The pain in their eyes was intense, and it was only with the greatest effort that they could open them for brief intervals.
“We’ve been goin’ long enough t’ be at th’ tilt,” said David, breaking the silence again.
“I were thinkin’ so,” said Andy.
Again they walked on in silence, each with the fear in his heart that they were lost, but neither voicing it until suddenly David stopped with the exclamation:
“We’re not on th’ mesh at all, Andy! We’re on th’ river!”
And sure enough, turning to the right they discovered the thick willow hedge which lined the river bank.
“Th’ snow is so deep on th’ ice I didn’t know th’ difference,” explained David.
“And I didn’t know th’ difference,” said Andy.
“We missed th’ tilt, and—and I’m afraid we’ll have a hard time, between th’ blindness and th’ storm, findin’ it, Andy,” David said, hesitatingly.
“We’ll—we’ll have a hard time,” agreed Andy.
“But,” said David, with hope in his voice, “if we keeps goin’ down th’ river we’ll come t’ th’ Half-way tilt, whatever, and from th’ time we been walkin’ we must have come a long way down th’ river now. If we keeps goin’ we’ll sure come t’ th’ Half-way tilt before dark.”
“We’ll sure come to un if we keeps goin’,” said Andy.
“Keep plenty o’ grit,” cheered David.
“Aye, plenty o’ grit—and a stout heart,” said Andy.
The wind was steadily increasing, and even now driving the snow down the river valley in suffocating clouds, but the two boys kept bravely on. Once Andy fell, and David helped him up, and a little later he stumbled and fell again, and again David helped him to his feet.
“I’m—wonderful—tired,” said Andy.
“’Tis wearisome work,” soothed David.
“’Tis growin’ night,” said Andy.
“Aye, ’tis growin’ night,” David admitted reluctantly.
Again and again Andy stumbled and fell, and presently David relieved him of his rifle and carried both his own and Andy’s.
“I’m—so—sleepy,” breathed Andy.
“Keep your grit, Andy,” David cheered, though his own voice betrayed the overpowering weariness that was stealing over him.
“We’ll—keep—our—grit,” murmured Andy in a strange and scarcely intelligible voice.
Whenever Andy fell now, as he did with growing frequency, David found it necessary to exert his utmost strength to lift the boy to his feet. At length the horrible truth forced itself upon David. Half blind and exhausted, they were hopelessly lost in the wilderness, amidst the terrors of a northern blizzard.
Staggering with weariness and exhaustion, he dragged the half unconscious Andy through the first fortunate opening in the willow brush upon which he stumbled as he blindly groped his way. In doing so he had a vague, forlorn hope that in the shelter of the forest he might succeed in kindling a fire. But here, as everywhere, utter darkness surrounded him, made darker by his attack of snowblindness, and he dared not release for an instant his grip upon Andy’s arm, in fear that he might lose him.
Now, when Andy fell, David, who held his arm, fell with him, and lying there a sense of vast relief stole over David, and he wished to sleep. He could hear the wind shrieking and moaning through the tree tops. It seemed far away, and lying there in the snow beyond its reach he was warm and comfortable, and his eyes were heavy. Suddenly the realization that they must keep moving at whatever cost of effort flashed upon his brain, and rising to his knees he shook Andy, and with desperation called to him to get up, and finally dragged himself and Andy to their feet.
“Keep—your—grit—Andy! We—must—keep our—grit, b’y!” he encouraged.
“Keep—our—grit,” mumbled Andy, and the two staggered forward again.
And then there came before David’s half-closed, blinded eyes what appeared like a dim cloud of fire, rising out of the blackness. Clinging to Andy’s arm, he lurched forward, and stumbled and fell, with Andy by his side, and with the far-away moan of the wind in his ears, like distant unearthly voices. And now he lay still and did not try to rise.
XIX
THE HALF BREED DESERTS
DAVID was vaguely aware of a babel of human voices, and that he was being lifted, and then came a sudden consciousness of warmth, accompanied by the pleasant odor of burning wood.
He attempted to open his eyes, but the effort resulted in such sharp pain that he directly closed them again. Dimly, however, he had seen in the brief interval his eyes were open that Andy was by his side, and the dark forms of Indians bending over them, and the blaze of a fire. Then he fell into the heavy slumber of complete exhaustion.
With returning consciousness the following day David’s first thought was that he was in his bunk in the Namaycush Lake tilt. He could hear the blizzard still raging outside. Vaguely he felt relieved that the storm would not permit him and Andy to venture out upon the trails, and that he might rest a little longer, for he was aware of an unusual lassitude and weariness and a desire to remain in bed.
Then there stole upon him the recollection of the terrible struggle in the blizzard, how Andy had become exhausted, and his own desperate effort to keep Andy upon his feet and to keep moving himself. Dimly he recalled the faint cloud of fire that had suddenly risen before him in the darkness at a moment when he felt his strength exhausted and he sank into the snow, and then the sensation of warmth, the vision of Indians and the echo of voices.
David’s senses were awake now, and sitting up he attempted to look about him. Faintly, as through a smoke, he saw a fire and an Indian woman bending over it. Two Indians sat opposite, smoking, and there were other Indians by the fire. He recognized at once the interior of an Indian wigwam. Then the pain in his eyes compelled him to close them again immediately.
“Beeg snow. Mooch bad,” said one of the Indians good-naturedly, observing that David was awake.
“Where am I?” asked David.
“Sa-peesh tent,” said the Indian.
“Andy! Is Andy all right?” David asked apprehensively.
“Andy sleep mooch,” laughed the Indian. “Heem all right.”
David was vastly relieved by this assurance. He knew Sa-peesh, the old Mountaineer Indian, well, for Sa-peesh had camped at the post each summer for as many years as David could remember, and of all the Indians that came there was the only one who could speak English.
With Sa-peesh’s limited command of English, and the few Indian words that David understood, he presently learned that he and Andy had fallen headlong against the wigwam in the night, that the Indians had thus discovered and rescued them, and that they were quite welcome to remain until they were sufficiently recovered from exhaustion and snowblindness to return to the tilts. He also learned that they were a considerable distance to the eastward of Namaycush Lake, and had doubtless traveled up, instead of, as they had supposed, down, the river.
Satisfied with the assurance that Andy was quite safe, David lay back again upon the bed of boughs, as there was nothing else to do, and as he lay there he recounted to himself the happenings of the previous day.
The cloud of fire that had appeared so suddenly before him, then, was the Indians’ tent, with the firelight filtering through it and he whispered a little prayer of thanksgiving that God had guided him and Andy to it—and that they had kept their grit. Then he heard a movement by his side, and Andy’s voice speaking his name.
“Here I be, Andy!” said David eagerly. “How you feelin’?”
“Not so bad if ’tweren’t for th’ hurt in my eyes. Where are we, Davy?” asked Andy.
“In Sa-peesh’s tent, and away up th’ river instead o’ down,” answered David. “We ran into their tent in th’ dark. ’Twas good we kept our grit, Andy, or we’d ha’ perished before we got here.”
“We did keep our grit, now, didn’t we Davy, and stout hearts, too?” and there was pride and satisfaction in Andy’s voice.
“And now,” continued David, “we’ll be here a week, whatever, before th’ snowblind leaves us, and then in another fortnight ’twill be time t’ strike up th’ traps.”
“But we made a fine hunt, whatever,” said Andy.
“That we did!” agreed David. “A fine hunt, now!”
While the boys were talking Mrs. Sa-peesh was dipping generous portions of boiled venison from a kettle that simmered over the fire, and now Sa-peesh interrupted the boys with an invitation to eat, setting before them, at the same time, the dish of venison, two tin cups and a kettle of tea. And though they could open their eyes only to narrow slits, because of the pain, there was no complaint to be made with their appetite, and they managed well enough.
And thus, miraculously, David and Andy were rescued, and they were safe enough, and comfortable enough, too, in the wigwam with Sa-peesh and Mrs. Sa-peesh, and Mesh-tuk (tree), a young Indian who lived with them and hunted with Sa-peesh, and Amish-ku (beaver) and Ni-pit-se (summer), the two children. A-mish-ku, a lad of twelve, and Ni-pit-se, a maiden of fifteen years, were exceedingly well pleased that they were to have the companionship of David and Andy for so long, and they chattered to the two boys in their wild Indian tongue, and there was a deal of sport for all, learning to pronounce each other’s strange words.
It was Saturday evening that week when Indian Jake reached the Narrows tilt, for he too had been delayed by the storm. He was not in the least astonished or disturbed that the boys did not appear as usual.
“Held up by the storm,” said he to himself. “They’ll be here tomorrow.”
He was somewhat at a loss to account for their non-arrival on Sunday. The storm had continued but two days, and he could think of no good reason why they should have been delayed longer. He slept not the less soundly, however, Sunday night, and on Monday morning as usual set out upon the weekly round of his trail, well satisfied that the boys would appear later.
He was mystified, however, upon returning the following Friday, to discover that David and Andy had not visited the tilt during his absence, and still more mystified when they failed to appear either that evening or Saturday evening.
“Something has happened,” he said, when it grew so late he was assured they would not come. “I’ll go over their trail tomorrow and take a look for them.”
Accordingly, early on Sunday morning he set out with his long, swinging, rapid stride for the Halfway tilt, and making no pause to visit traps, and not following the windings of the trail but taking a straight course, reached there a considerable time before midday. A brief survey was sufficient to satisfy him that the boys had not been there for many days, and without halting to prepare his dinner he continued to the Namaycush Lake tilt.
It was early afternoon of the long April day when the tilt came into view, and as he approached it his sharp eyes took in every detail of the surroundings. There had been no storm since the blizzard in which David and Andy were lost, and the half-breed was quick to discover no track of snowshoes.
“Not here since the storm!” he exclaimed.
The boys’ toboggan leaned against the tilt outside, and within, the half-breed discovered their sleeping bags and other equipment which they usually carried with them. He closed the tilt and set out upon the marsh, but no sign or mark could be found to indicate the course they had taken.
“Lost in the storm,” he said, turning back after an hour’s fruitless search. “No use looking for them any longer. They’ve perished. They’re buried deep enough under the drifts somewhere, and when the thaw comes they’ll be food for foxes and wolves.”
Indian Jake proceeded to kindle a fire in the stove, and, while the kettle was boiling, to examine two marten pelts, which hung from the ceiling. These he took down and stuffed into the bosom of his shirt. Then turning his attention to a search for food, he discovered some fat pork and stale camp bread. He sliced some of the pork into a frying pan and placed it upon the stove. Indian Jake was hungry, for he had eaten nothing since early morning.
When he had disposed of his simple and hastily prepared dinner, the half-breed set out upon his return without delay. When night fell the trail was lighted by a brilliant moon, and he did not stop until near midnight, when he reached the Narrows tilt.
Indian Jake kindled a fire, boiled the kettle, and ate a belated supper. Then he took down a bag suspended from the ceiling, opened it, and drew forth the furs which David and Andy had captured during the winter.
The pelts were in the condition in which they had been cured, the fur side turned in, the fleshy side out, for, as previously explained, in skinning a fur-bearing animal the trapper draws the pelt off whole, necessarily turning it as he draws it down over the head, and it is then stretched upon a properly shaped board, after which all fat and fleshy adhesions are scraped away.
One by one Indian Jake turned down each pelt sufficiently to examine the color and texture of the fur, turned it back again, and laid it on the bunk. Thus he first went over the marten pelts, laying them in three piles, graded as to value and quality. In the same manner he graded the fox and mink pelts. There were also four lynx and the three wolf skins. Indian Jake had previously examined every pelt, to be sure, but never before with the careful criticism he now displayed.
This done he mentally calculated the value, and uttered a huge grunt of satisfaction.
“Worth five hundred dollars—maybe six hundred—at the Bay, and they’d bring nine hundred in Quebec. Good! One more round o’ th’ trail, and I’ll strike up, and go. Won’t be safe t’ wait for the break up. Wish I had my fur here; I’d go in the mornin’!”
The following morning the half-breed left the tilt at the usual hour, gathering his fur at his tilts as he went, and striking up his traps when he had examined them for his week’s catch; and on Friday drew his toboggan as usual to the Narrows tilt.
On Saturday Indian Jake assorted his own furs in the same manner in which he had previously assorted those of David and Andy.
“Ugh!” he grunted. “Thought I’d tell ’em what I had! Wonder what they’d said t’ that!”
And he held up to his admiring gaze a beautiful silver fox skin, shaking it briskly as he did so, that all its glossy luster might appear to advantage.
“Worth six hundred anyhow,” he muttered with satisfaction.
Then he drew out another, shook and examined it in like manner.
“Not so good,” he said. “Worth four hundred, though, at the Post. Even if I hadn’t got these two silvers, it’s the best hunt I ever had. Worth with the silvers about fifteen hundred. And Tom Angus thinks he’ll get a third of it! Ugh!”
The balance of the day was occupied in getting together the things he wished to take with him. The venison had long since been eaten. There was some whitefish, taken upon a second fishing excursion, four rabbits and several partridges. A small amount of flour, salt pork and tea also remained. These he carefully packed. On Sunday morning Indian Jake lashed upon his toboggan all of the provisions, a cotton tent, a tent stove, his sleeping bag and other equipment, and all the furs.
Snow was falling when the half-breed closed the tilt door, and, hauling his well-laden toboggan, turned southward. Presently the thick falling flakes closed upon him, and covered his tracks, and no sign or mark remained to indicate in which direction he had gone. The Narrows tilt and the fur trails were now deserted indeed.