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 OiLEIvS 
 THE TRAIL 
 
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 GEORGE^ MAt;S^ 
 
CORNELL 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 FROM 
 
 E.L.Nichols 
 
Cornell University Library 
 PS 3525.A7803T6 
 
 Toilers of the trails: 
 
 3 1924 021 779 446 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of this book is in 
 the Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924021779446 
 
ON CAME THE STKANUE PAIR 
 
TOILERS 
 OF THE TRAILS 
 
 BY 
 
 GEORGE MARSH 
 
 Illustrated by 
 Frank E. Schoonover 
 
 THE PENN PUBLISHING 
 
 COMPANY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 1921 
 
 < 
 
COPYRIGHT 
 1921 BY 
 THE PENN 
 PUBLISHING 
 COMPANY 
 
 Toilers of the Trails 
 
For permission to reprint some of the 
 stories in this volume, the author is 
 indebted to the courtesy of the editors 
 of Scribner's Magazine, The Century 
 Magazine and The Bed Book Magazine. 
 
Contents 
 
 For the Great Father . , 
 Out of the Mist .... 
 A Little Tragedy at Coocoocache 
 When the Prince Came Home . 
 With the Winter Mail 
 The Valley of the Windigo . 
 The Quest of Narcisse Lablanche 
 The Land of His Fathers . 
 The High Brotherhood . 
 
 7 
 
 39 
 71 
 
 lOI 
 
 131 
 155 
 181 
 207 
 
 233 
 
Illustrations 
 
 On came the strange pair . 
 
 "I am Prangois Hertel " . 
 
 " Dem papier say one t'ousand dollar " 
 
 The Prince slashed with his sharp teeth 
 
 The freezing man was dragged to safety 
 
 " Up dere," he said, pointing with a shaking finger 
 
 The rifle flew to his shoulder 
 
 Again at his signal the crew thrust the boat forward 
 Gordon drank in the beauty of the picture 
 
 Frontispiece 
 
 PAGE 
 
 80 
 
 89 
 109 
 122 
 139 
 174 
 221 
 228 
 
 Toilers of the Trails 
 
THE OLD CANOE 
 
 My seams gape wide, so I'm tossed aside 
 
 To rot on a lonely shore 
 While the leaves and mould like a shroud enfold. 
 
 For the last of my trails are o'er ; 
 But I float in dreams on Northland streams 
 
 That never again I'll see. 
 As I lie on the marge of the old portage 
 
 With grief for company. 
 
 When the sunset gilds the timbered hills 
 
 That guard Timagami, 
 And the moonbeams play on far James Bay 
 
 By the brink of the frozen sea. 
 In phantom guise my spirit flies 
 
 As the dream-blades dip and swing 
 Where the waters flow from the Long Ago 
 
 In the spell of the beck'ning spring. 
 
 Do the cow-moose call on the Montreal 
 
 When the first frost bites the air. 
 And the mists unfold from the red and gold 
 
 That the autumn ridges wear ? 
 When the white falls roar as they did of yore 
 
 On the Lady Evelyn, 
 Do the square-tail leap from the black pools deep 
 
 Where the pictured rocks begin? 
 
 Oh ! the fiu--fleets sing on Timiskaming 
 
 As the ashen paddles bend. 
 And the crews carouse at Rupert House 
 
 At the sullen winter's end ; 
 But my days are done where the lean wolves run 
 
 And I ripple no more the path 
 Where the gray geese race 'cross the red moon's face 
 
 From the white wind's Arctic wrath. 
 
 Tho' the death-fraught way from the Saguenay 
 
 To the storied Nipigon 
 Once knew me well, now a crumbling shell 
 
 I watch the years roll on. 
 While in memory's haze I live the days 
 
 That forever are gone from me. 
 As I rot on the marge of the old portage 
 
 With grief for company. 
 
 — George Marsh. 
 
FOR THE GREAT FATHER 
 
FOR THE GREAT FATHER 
 
 At Half- Way-House, far over the Height-of- 
 Land on the James Bay watershed, the bitter Decem- 
 ber wind drove around the whitewashed log buildings 
 in swirls of powdery snow. In the post clearing out- 
 side the dog-stockade the tepees of Crees in for the 
 Christmas trade stood deep in drifts. Around the 
 roaring stove in the trade-house lounged a group of 
 red trappers filling the long room with smoke as they 
 gloomily discussed in Cree the news brought by the 
 freshly arrived winter mail-team from the southern 
 posts. Behind the huge slab trade-coimter sat Nichol- 
 son, the factor, and his clerk buried in papers, weeks 
 old, blazoned with accounts of the world war raging 
 since August; for mail from outside came but twice 
 a year to Half-Way-House, marooned in the wilder- 
 ness of Rupert Land. 
 
 Presently the yelping of huskies announced the ar- 
 rival of another team. Dog-bells jingled in front of 
 the building. The low guttural of the Crees about 
 the stove ceased as heads turned to inspect the new- 
 comer. Then the door of the trade-house opened, 
 admitting a tall figure crusted with snow from mocca- 
 sins to hood. 
 
 " Quey! Quey!" came the greetings from the 
 loungers, for the voyageur was well known at Half- 
 Way-House. 
 
 9 
 
10 TOILERS OF THE TRAILS 
 
 " Quey! Queyl " he threw out as he strode to the 
 counter. 
 
 "Hello, Joe! I didn't expect to see you till 
 spring! " 
 
 The factor turned from his paper to shake hands 
 over the counter with the tall trapper. 
 
 " I thought you said you were going to winter in 
 the Sinking Lake country and wouldn't get in for 
 Christmas? " 
 
 " I cum from de Sinkeen Lak' in seex sleep ; I got 
 nice fur for you." 
 
 " Nice fur, eh? Black fox? " 
 
 " Tree of dem," said the Cree, his small black eyes 
 snapping with pride. The loungers who had moved 
 to the counter to shake hands with the voyageur and 
 hear the talk, grunted in surprise. 
 
 " Too bad ! Too bad, Joe I " The factor shook his 
 head. " We've sad news from Quebec. War across 
 the Big Water! Nobody buys fur! Prices all gone 
 to smash!" 
 
 The dark face of the Indian changed with disap- 
 pointment. 
 
 " How? What you spik? " 
 
 " The Great Father in England fights the Ger- 
 mans," explained the factor. " Mail-team just in with 
 new prices for the Company posts. I'm sorry, Joe, 
 I can't allow you much on your skins." 
 
 " I got plentee marten an' feesher-cat," the Indian 
 muttered in his chagrin. 
 
 " Too bad, furs all gone down; bad times for the 
 Company, bad for the Injun." 
 
FOR THE GREAT FATHER 11 
 
 "A-hah! " The dazed Cree sighed, thinking of the 
 rich fur pack outside on his sled and the long days 
 he had toiled for it on his trap-lines in distant ice- 
 locked valleys. 
 
 " What you geeve now for black fox? " 
 
 " Can't give you half last year's price; nobody buys 
 'em; they've all gone to war. Canada sends soldiers 
 too, to fight for the King, the Great Father, across 
 the Big Water." 
 
 "A-hah!" The tall trapper listened in amaze- 
 ment. Then he asked: 
 
 " How long dees fight las'? " 
 
 " No one knows, Joe. It's the worst war the world 
 has seen and it may last a long time. The Big Eng- 
 lish Chief says three years." 
 
 " Fur no good w'ile de fight las'? " 
 
 " No, fur won't be worth much for some time." 
 
 "A-hah! " The Cree sighed heavily and went out 
 to look after his dogs. 
 
 For two days Joe Lecroix — although a full-blooded 
 Cree, his family had acquired the French name gen- 
 erations before — listened silently to the lamentation of 
 the trappers at Half -Way-House. It was destined 
 to be a sad Christmas indeed for those who had jour- 
 neyed from their winter camps for the revel that the 
 Great Company annually provides for its children of 
 the snows. And long before the trails went soft in 
 April there would be many a tepee in Rupert Land 
 that had not known flour or tea in moons. 
 
 But Joe Lecroix did not trade his black fox and 
 marten skins. While the Crees smoked, mourning 
 
12 TOILERS OF THE TRAILS 
 
 over the hard times, his active mind was busy. He 
 had long credit at the post ; in fact, had never been in 
 debt since he swung out for himself as a youth, and so 
 could hold his fur. 
 
 One morning he drove his team of half-breed Un- 
 gava huskies, loaded with his outfit and fur pack, up 
 to the trade-house. Entering the store he asked for 
 provisions for three weeks. 
 
 "What, Joe, you ain't goin' back before Christ- 
 mas? " asked Nicholson in surprise. 
 
 " No, I travel sout'. No good hunt fur dees long 
 snows," answered the Indian dryly. 
 
 " South? What do you mean? " 
 
 " Fur too cheap ! I got no woman to feed. I t'ink 
 I go to Kebec and see de sojer." 
 
 " Why, you're crazy, man! " cried the amazed fac- 
 tor. " It's four hundred miles to the Transconti- 
 nental at Weymontechene and it's the same back. 
 They don't want Injuns ; they won't take you." 
 
 The Cree straightened to his six feet, squaring his 
 wide shoulders. His eyes glittered angrily as he 
 broke into his native tongue, 
 
 " You say they ask for young men in Quebec to 
 fight for the Big Chief. You say they will not take 
 me, Joe Lecroix, to fight over the Big Water? Be- 
 cause my skin is dark, can I not fight? Where will 
 you find at the posts of the Great Company any who 
 shoots the running caribou so far as Joe Lecroix? Is 
 there a dog-runner at Rupert House, at Whale 
 River, at Mistissini, at the post by the Fading 
 Waters, who can take the trail from Joe Lecroix? 
 
FOR THE GREAT FATHER 13 
 
 What Company packer carries four bags of flour over 
 the Devil's Portage on the Nottaway without rest? 
 You saw Joe Lecroix do it two summers ago. Has 
 any canoe man in Rupert Land run the Chutes of 
 Death on the Harricanaw and lived? One! That 
 one was Joe Lecroix. You say the white men wUl 
 not take Joe Lecroix to fight across the Big Water 
 because he has a skin like the red cedar. I will go to 
 their camps and ask them." 
 
 The deep chest of the Cree rose and fell rapidly, his 
 face set hard as his small eyes fiercely held Nicholson's 
 gaze. 
 
 " It ain't that, Joe. All you say is dead truth, my 
 lad. You're as stout as a moose and the best white- 
 water man I've ever seen. It ain't that you ain't as 
 able a man as travels the north country. It's just 
 that they haven't enlisted Indians and may not in- 
 tend to. I can't tell, and it's a long journey south, 
 a long trail and a hard one. It would be tough if 
 they wouldn't take you. Eight weeks on the trail 
 with the dogs for nothing. It's safer to stick to the 
 traps, Joe." 
 
 " I go and fin' out." And no advice of Nich- 
 olson could turn the stubborn Cree from his pur- 
 pose. 
 
 When his provision bags were lashed on his sled, 
 there was a handshake all around and a babel of 
 Bo'- jo's from the Indians gathered to speed the mad 
 trapper who was taking a four-hundred-mile trail in 
 midwinter for the chance of getting himself killed in 
 the great fight across the Big Water. 
 
14 TOILERS OF THE TRAILS 
 
 The last to wring the voyageur's hand was Nichol- 
 son, who said: 
 
 " Take good care of yourself, Joe. Half -Way- 
 House can't afford to lose its best hunter. If you 
 enlist we'll expect to hear from you by the spring 
 canoe or the winter packet at least. Good-bye and 
 good luck!" 
 
 " Bo'-jo', Meester Nicholson. I sen' you news 
 from de fight," said Lecroix, and with a parting wave 
 of his hand he cracked his caribou-hide whip and was 
 off on the trail to the southern posts and far-off 
 Flanders. 
 
 Day by day, as he followed the Singing Rapids trail 
 to the Height-of-Land, now leading his team to pack 
 down the new drift, now riding where the wind had 
 brushed bare the icy shell of streams or beaten the 
 snow hard on the lakes, the Cree came to look with 
 changed eyes on the bleak winter hills and silent for- 
 ests of his native land. It was a far journey he was 
 entering on, and, as he hurried south behind his eager 
 huskies, he realized that there might be no return 
 down these valleys for the dog-team of Joe Lecroix. 
 He was going he knew not where, to fight the enemies 
 of the Great Father — the Great Father, of whom his 
 children of the forests had but the vaguest ideas from 
 post-trader and missionary. In the two days he spent 
 at Half -Way-House he had learned what the factor 
 had gathered from newspapers and letters brought by 
 the Christmas-mail team, and it had been sufficient for 
 Joe Lecroix. 
 
 The fur trade stagnant and no one depending on 
 
FOR THE GREAT FATHER 15 
 
 his efforts for support, the news of the fighting in 
 France had fired the imagination of the Cree, The 
 Big Chief was calling for men. Thousands of white 
 Canadians had gone and more were going. Should 
 the red man be found wanting? Where in all Rupert 
 Land was there a keener eye over the sights, a more 
 daring bow-man in Company boats, as tireless a dog- 
 runner? And the enemies of the Great Father 
 pressed him sorely. Down in Quebec by the big river 
 all through the autumn the air had been torn with the 
 speaking of the rifles in the ranges — so Nicholson had 
 read to him — and the wide plain trampled by the feet 
 of the marching sons of the Great Father. For a 
 year, maybe two, a black fox would be worth hardly 
 what an otter once brought. Far at the lonely post 
 by the Fading Waters the deep snow mounded all that 
 had once made his life a thing of value to him — the 
 Montagnais girl he had married one year, and lost, 
 all in the short space between the passing and the 
 return of the gray geese. There were no small mouths 
 for Joe Lecroix to feed, no ties that held him, and the 
 Big Chief was calling for men. The word had 
 travelled far into the north, even to the snow-swept 
 spruces of Rupert Land, and had found the heart of 
 one of his children. 
 
 It was a bitter trail that the Cree had chosen — ^the 
 trail to the St. Maurice posts. In the Height-of- 
 Land country the first January blizzard swept down 
 on the team hurrying south. Burrowing into the 
 snow with his dogs, to escape the searing wind with 
 its scourge of fine ciystals that struck like shot, he 
 
16 TOILERS OF THE TRAILS 
 
 waited, while the forests rocked above him, for the 
 storm to blow itself out. Then, after days of toil in 
 the deep snow, the spent dog-team floundered into the 
 post at Lost Lake. 
 
 There the factor raised his hands in protest at the 
 purpose of the voyageur to push south in the bitter 
 weather. " There's two feet of new snow. You'll 
 be weeks making Kickendache; wait until the cold lets 
 up and the wind eases the trail." 
 
 But the call of the Big Chief still rang in the ears 
 of the Cree, and when his dogs were rested he pushed 
 on. So he journeyed south, harassed by the stinging 
 January winds which cut the faces of dogs and driver 
 like a knife-edge; camping under star-encrusted 
 heavens over which the northern lights pulsed and 
 streamed, while forest and icy shell of river and lake 
 snapped and cracked and boomed in the pinch of the 
 withering cold. 
 
 At last a team of gaunt huskies crept out of the 
 north into Weymontechene, where the new Trans- 
 continental, leaving the upper St. Maurice, swings 
 west toward the Gatineau headwaters. The weekly 
 train to Quebec was due in three days, but the Cree 
 would not wait; he had never seen the Iron Horse of 
 the white man and preferred to keep on down the river 
 with his dogs. 
 
 One day late in January a sentinel patrolling a road 
 leading to the great training camp at Valcartier, now 
 almost deserted of troops which had been forwarded 
 to England, saw approaching a team of lean huskies 
 hitched to a sled, followed by a tall figure in caribou- 
 
FOR THE GREAT FATHER 17 
 
 skin capote. As they neared him he gazed with sur- 
 prise at the huge northern dogs and their wild-looking 
 driver. Stepping into the road in front of them, he 
 raised his hand. The tall driver shouted to the lead- 
 dog and the team reluctantly stopped, slant eyes, 
 flattened ears, and low rimible in throat evidencing 
 their desire to leap at the stranger who dared threaten 
 the dogs of Joe Lecroix with lifted hand. 
 
 " Halt! No passing here! What d' you want? " 
 shouted the guard, lowering his bayonet as the lead- 
 dog bared his fangs with a menacing snarl. 
 
 "Quey! Quey !" replied the driver. Then quiet- 
 ing his restless dogs he continued: " I cum from de 
 nord covmtree, Rupert Lan', to fight for de Great 
 Fader." 
 
 The Canadian stared at the wind-blackened face, 
 caribou capote with its gaudy Hudson's Bay sash, and 
 embroidered leggings of the voyageur. 
 
 " Good Gawd! Rupert Land? You've travelled 
 some to enlist," he said. " Come up to the sentry- 
 box. I'll turn you over to the sergeant." 
 
 Leaving the Cree in the road, the soldier entered 
 the neighboring shack. 
 
 " Sergeant, there's a wUd Injun outside, with a 
 team of man-eatin' dogs, who wants to enlist. He's 
 mushed a long way from the bush." 
 
 The sergeant, who came from western Ontario, was 
 interested. 
 
 "Bring him in!" 
 
 The Cree entered the shack where the sergeant and 
 two privates sat aroimd a stove. 
 
18 TOILERS OF THE TRAILS 
 
 " Quey ! " said Joe Lecroix, his black eyes snapping 
 with pleasure at the martial appearance lent the room 
 by the rifles and kits of the men. 
 
 " Bo'- jo'! Where you from? " answered the On- 
 tario man, using the Ojibway salutation. " You look 
 like the end of a long trail over the snow." 
 
 " Oua, yes! My name ees Joe Lecroix. I travel 
 one moon from Half -Way-House, four sleeps from 
 Mistassini Lac." 
 
 "Well, I'll be damned! So you've been on the 
 trail a month and want to enlist? " 
 
 "Oua! Fur no good! I cum to fight for de Beeg 
 Chief. I am good man. Strong as buU moose, run 
 lak de wolf." 
 
 The Cree squared his shoulders, shifting his gaze 
 from one to another of his hearers as if challenging 
 them to disprove his words. 
 
 " Well ! WeU ! A month on the trail in midwinter 
 over the Height-of-Land ! That's some spirit, men ! " 
 
 The sergeant turned to the others, whose faces pic- 
 tured the impression the physique and story of the 
 Cree had made. 
 
 " I don't know whether they've enlisted any Indians 
 yet, Joe; but I'll take you to an officer." 
 
 The Indian's face fell. Almost fiercely he re- 
 peated: " I am good man — can shoot, run wid dog- 
 team, bow-man on Company beeg canoe. I can fight 
 strong for de Great Fader! " 
 
 "I believe your story, my boy! You sure look 
 like a rough customer in a mix-up, and any man who 
 comes clear from Rupert Land to enlist deserves 
 
FOR THE GREAT FATHER 19 
 
 recognition. I wish we had a hundred like you in 
 our regiment. I'll take you to the officer of the 
 guard." 
 
 Followed hy the Cree and his dog-team, the sergeant 
 strode to the neighboring barracks, passing on the way 
 soldiers who stopped to gaze in wonder at the wild 
 recruit and his huge huskies. 
 
 Gaining admittance to the office of the officer of 
 the guard, the sergeant saluted and told his story. 
 
 " I've got a big Cree Indian outside, sir, who says 
 he's driven his dogs clear from the Rupert River 
 Coimtry to enlist. And from the condition of his 
 face and the looks of his dogs, I believe him. I've 
 driven dogs myself, sir, on the Transcontinental Sur- 
 vey." 
 
 " We haven't enlisted any Indians yet, sergeant." 
 
 " I know, sir, but I wish you'd have a look at him. 
 He's a big, handsome-built lad, and it seems hard to 
 turn him back after being on the trail a month." 
 
 " You say he's come all the way from the far north 
 with his dogs? " asked a gray-haired officer present. 
 
 " Yes, sir. They look it, too." 
 
 " Have the sergeant bring him in, captain," said 
 the older officer. " I'd like to see the Indian who is 
 patriotic enough to spend a month on the trail in mid- 
 winter for a chance to get himself shot in France." 
 
 Entering the room the Cree opened his skin capote, 
 throwing back the hood from a face cracked by wind 
 and frost. A sinewy hand brushed the thick hair 
 from the narrow eyes that searched the faces of the 
 officers for a clew to the verdict that would send him 
 
20 TOILERS OF THE TRAILS 
 
 back heart-broken over the bitter trail he had travelled, 
 or make him a soldier of the Great Father. 
 
 " You want to enlist? " 
 
 " Oua, yes, I cum to fight for de Great Fader." 
 
 At the quaintness of the reply the suggestion of a 
 smile crept into the gray eyes of the older officer. 
 
 " Where are you from? " 
 
 " I cum wid dog-team from Rupert Lan'." 
 
 " When did you leave? " 
 
 " I leave Half -Way-House, Creesmas tam." 
 
 " You've been on the trail ever since? " 
 
 " Oua, yes. I cross Height-of-Lan' to St. M'rees 
 water and follow riviere trail. I cum more fas' but 
 de blizzard ketch me." 
 
 Then the Cree, wondering, if men were wanted to 
 fight, why they hesitated to accept him, impetuously 
 burst out with: 
 
 " I am strong man! I mak' beeg fight! I can 
 shoot goose in de air wid rifle. I show you I am 
 good man!" 
 
 The earnestness of the Indian had its effect. While 
 the gray-haired officer talked with his junior in low 
 tones, Joe Lecroix, perplexity and fear written 
 plainly on his rugged features, awaited the verdict. 
 They wanted fighting men, and here he was, known as 
 a hunter and voyageur from Whale River down to 
 Grand Lac Victoria, offering his services to the Great 
 Father, and yet these soldiers seemed unwilling to 
 take him. 
 
 " He'd make a smashing man in khaki, captain. 
 He's the timber we want — ^look at his neck and shoul- 
 
FOR THE GREAT FATHER 21 
 
 ders. It would be shameful after the hardship he's 
 endured in getting here to refuse to enlist him." 
 
 " We may have trouble with Ottawa over it, sir, 
 but I'll give him a chance. These wild ones take a 
 lot of drilling; they don't like discipline. They want 
 to see fighting at once because they can ride and shoot. 
 You remember those cattlemen from Calgary, sir? " 
 
 " Yes, but give the Indian a trial; I'll take the re- 
 sponsibility." 
 
 So Joe Lecroix was enlisted into the — th Canadian 
 Infantry, then at Salisbury Plain, England, a reserve 
 unit of which was still stationed at Valcartier await- 
 ing removal to Halifax. 
 
 When the red recruit stripped for the physical ex- 
 amination the surgeon grunted in admiration as mus- 
 cles, steel-hardened on the white waters and the port- 
 ages and sled-trails of Rupert Land, rippled and 
 bulged under the bronze skin. 
 
 " The handsomest big man I've seen at Valcartier, 
 colonel," he told the gray-haired officer who inquired 
 for his protege. " He's got the back and arms of a 
 Greek wrestler." 
 
 Then, after much heart-burning, mumbling in 
 guttural Cree, mauling of hairy heads and pointed 
 ears, and rubbing of wrinkled noses, Lecroix sold his 
 friends, loyal since puppyhood — friends which no 
 winter trail, however bitter, had daunted — to a resi- 
 dent of Quebec, disposed of his furs, and became a 
 soldier of the King. 
 
 But great as was his joy in the attainment of the 
 goal which had lured him out of the white north, his 
 
22 TOILERS OF THE TRAILS 
 
 disappointment on learning that most of the Canadian 
 troops had already left for England was no less in- 
 tense. To have toiled through the midwinter snows 
 of the Height-of-Land country, only to find that he 
 would be cooped up in barracks until spring, weighed 
 heavily on the spirits of the impatient Cree thirsting 
 for the firing line in France and a shot at these un- 
 known enemies of the Great Father. Was it to be 
 for this tiresome grind of daily drill and inactivity that 
 he had left his trap-lines in frozen northern valleys? 
 
 At first there were those among the white recruits 
 with whom Joe Lecroix was quartered who resented 
 the idea of comradeship with a wild Cree from the 
 Rupert Land "bush." But the big Indian who 
 talked little and smoked much in barracks, apart from 
 his comrades, was patently too dangerous a subject 
 for the practical jokes or hectoring of any but the 
 most reckless. 
 
 However, one night a commotion in the bvmk-room 
 brought a sergeant cursing to the door, to find an en- 
 raged Cree holding off two privates with the rem- 
 nants of a heavy bench as he stood over the insensible 
 bodies of three of their comrades. Blood welling from 
 a cut made by the butt of a Ross rifle, smearing his 
 thick black hair, heightened the fierceness of the nar- 
 row eyes blazing with the fighting lust of his race. 
 The Cree had swung the bench back over his head for 
 a rush at the last of his assailants, who brandished 
 clubbed guns, when the sergeant sprang between them. 
 
 The officer afterward privately remarked to his 
 captain: " The Injun had a fightin' look in his face as 
 
FOR THE GREAT FATHER 23 
 
 he stood over them drunks that'd 'a' put the terror to 
 a regiment of Germans." 
 
 At the subsequent court martial, Lecroix refused to 
 make a charge against his comrades who had returned 
 from leave drunk and started the trouble. In fact, 
 he scorned the opportunity, offered him by the officers 
 presiding, to avoid punishment by pleading self-de- 
 fense. So he suffered the penalty of confinement and 
 extra duty meted out to the rest; but by the same 
 mark, suddenly, to his surprise, f otmd himself the most 
 popular man in barracks. 
 
 " That Injun's white clear through, and a wolf in a 
 fight," was the general comment from the ranks. 
 
 But Joe Lecroix was pining for the war in France 
 and the weeks were slipping by. Then, one morning, 
 when the reserve unit of the — ^th was ordered to 
 Halifax, the heart of the Cree was made light. At 
 last they were going — crossing the Big Water to the 
 great fight. 
 
 But at Halifax they were assigned to the barracks 
 of the — d Infantry which was about to sail and the 
 Indian gave himself up to despair. He should never 
 see the war, never have the chance to fight the hated 
 Germans. As he watched the men of the — d march 
 down to their ship there grew in his heart a fierce 
 resentment at his lot, almost a hatred of those fortu- 
 nate ones chosen to go, while he who had toiled so for 
 the opportunity to fight in that far-off France, must 
 stay behind. 
 
 Three days later Colonel Waring of the — d Ca- 
 
24 TOILERS OF THE TRAILS 
 
 nadian Infantry, bound for Southampton on the 
 troop-ship Ontario, was saluted by one of his captains. 
 
 "We've found a stowaway aboard, sir. He's a 
 Cree Indian; belongs to the reserves of the — th, who 
 arrived in Halifax Monday." 
 
 " What in thunder did he stowaway on a troop-ship 
 for if he wanted to desert? " 
 
 " He wants to fight, sir, not desert. He has quite 
 a history." 
 
 " What do you mean, Captam Booth? " 
 
 " Why, one of the officers of the — th told me the 
 Indian had travelled with a dog-team from the far 
 north to enlist. He heard about the war in a Hud- 
 son's Bay Post and mushed five hundred miles in 
 midwinter. I wish more Canadians had his spirit." 
 
 "Well, well!" muttered the colonel, "and he 
 couldn't wait to go with the — th, so came with us? 
 Let me see him! " 
 
 Smeared with the grime and tar of the ship's hold, 
 Lecroix stood before Colonel Waring and saluted. 
 
 Unflinchingly the small eyes of the Cree met the 
 gaze of the ofiicer. 
 
 " Do you know what desertion means? " 
 
 " Oua, yes, seer! " replied the Cree. 
 
 " Why did you leave your regiment, then? " 
 
 " I wan' to fight, not to rot all dees winter in de 
 barrack." 
 
 " Um ! " The oflBcer scratched his chin. 
 
 " Didn't you know you'd be sent back on the next 
 ship for Halifax? " 
 
 " I wan' to fight, seer! I travail all de Januar' 
 
FOR THE GREAT FATHER 25 
 
 moon to Kebec to fight, not to lie like a squaw in de 
 barrack." 
 
 The black eyes of the Indian bored straight into 
 those of the colonel. The officer dropped his own to 
 note the bold features and powerful build of the man 
 before him. Here was no ordinary Indian, but the 
 makings of a magnificent soldier. He found himself 
 wishing that he commanded a regiment of the mettle 
 of this deserter. Finally he said: 
 
 " Desertion in time of war is the gravest offense a 
 soldier can commit. Um!" Again the stubby fin- 
 gers sought the square chin. " To be sure, you 
 have deserted for the front. Um!" Another pause. 
 " Still you will be sent back to your command and se- 
 verely punished. Um ! " More rubbing of the chin 
 followed; then: 
 
 " Captain Booth, enroll and quarter this man tem- 
 porarily with your company and report immediately 
 to Halifax by wireless. On landing I will turn him 
 over to the authorities for deportation." 
 
 But somehow the case of Joe Lecroix was not re- 
 ported to the authorities when the regiment landed 
 and went to the great camp at Salisbury Plain. 
 Furthermore, later, by some magic, the Cree's name 
 was stricken from his company roll in the — th reserve 
 unit at Halifax and allowed to remain on the roll of 
 Booth's company of the — d. After another severe 
 reprimand from the colonel, there the matter rested, 
 to the surprise of the battalion. 
 
 But Joe Lecroix soon realized that at the camp at 
 Salisbury Plain, with its army corps of marching men 
 
26 TOILERS OF THE TRAILS 
 
 at drill, its ceaseless staccato of rifle practice in the 
 ranges and roll of the deeper-tongxied field-pieces, he 
 was still far from the fighting in Flanders. Yet regi- 
 ments and divisions were daUy leaving for the front 
 and his spirits rose. Some day to huii would come 
 the call to strike for Canada and the Kin g. 
 
 It was not long before the — d Battalion had rea- 
 son to be proud of the stowaway of the Ontario^ for in 
 the first rifle match in which the Canadian Division 
 contested the red private from Rupert Land showed 
 a total absence of nerves and an unerring eye by get- 
 ting repeated bull's-eyes on the shorter ranges of two, 
 three, and five hundred yards, winning the match for 
 the Canadians. 
 
 That night at mess the colonel of the — d was over- 
 heard saying to a captain: 
 
 " That little matter at Halifax has been adjusted, 
 captain. They'll have to come and get him if they 
 want him now, after this afternoon, eh? " And the 
 oflScers grinned widely as they wrung each other's 
 hands, for the rivalry at Salisbuiy Plain was keen. 
 
 Finally, one day there came an end to the mi- 
 patience of Private Lecroix, for the Canadians were 
 ordered to France. At last the men from the Selkirks 
 and the Saguenay, from the ranches of the Saskatche- 
 wan and the forests of Ontario and Quebec — cow- 
 boys, miners, and city men, farmers, trappers, and 
 lumberjacks — ^were to have their chance to strike for 
 England and Our Lady of the Snows. 
 
 Without avail they had chafed and growled and 
 protested under the long period of preparation de- 
 
FOR THE GREAT FATHER 27 
 
 manded by the chief of staff, but at last these hardy 
 sons of the north were pronounced fit, and soon their 
 ears would vibrate with the shriek of shells from the 
 great guns over the channel. And at the news no eyes 
 in the Canadian Division brightened with anticipation 
 as did the beady ones of Private Lecroix, sharp- 
 shooter. At last he was to see these hated enemies of 
 the Great Father. 
 
 For three weeks the — d Battalion had been 
 holding a section of trenches in the mud at Ypres. 
 For three weeks sharpshooter Lecroix had been 
 watching the Prussians opposite for a shot at a head 
 or an arm, as the gray owl of his native north watches 
 a barren for ptarmigan. Time and again an unwary 
 German had paid the penalty of offering the target of 
 a few square inches to an eye trained to the keenness 
 of the hawk's in wringing a livelihood from the lean 
 lands of muskeg and forest. An eye and a hand that 
 had held the rifle-sights true on a gray goose riding 
 the wind found little leisure in the trenches of Flan- 
 ders. 
 
 But this holing up in the mud like a musquash, this 
 dull waiting for action which never came, wore sorely 
 on the patience of the restless Cree. This was not the 
 manner of war he had pictured to himself as he lay 
 by his camp-fire in the snow on the long trail south 
 through the stinging January winds. It was the per- 
 sonal combat of lunge and thrust, of blow for blow, 
 after rifle-firing and a wild charge — the struggle 
 of strong men at close grips, of which he had 
 dreamed and for which he now thirsted. Of artil- 
 
28 TOILERS OF THE TRAILS 
 
 lery he had known nothing and this ceaseless thunder- 
 ing of the great guns, this taking to earth, like a fox 
 to his burrow, when the high-explosive shells shrieked 
 over, harassed his pride; this wiping out of men with 
 shrapnel and machine guns was like emptying a 
 charge of shot into a flock of bewildered yellow-legs on 
 the James Bay marshes — it was not man's work. 
 
 But at length fate smiled on the one who had 
 waited long. From the day that the — d Battalion 
 reached the front, tales of the night forays of a neigh- 
 boring Gurkha regiment had travelled to them down 
 the trenches. In twos and threes these little brown 
 men of Nepal, armed only with their terrible native 
 kukeri, had been wriggling over on black nights, like 
 snakes through the grass, to the advanced trenches 
 and listening posts of the enemy. A leap, a thrust in 
 the dark, a groan, and the stabbed men lying stiff in 
 the gray dawn alone told the relief that the Gurkhas 
 had been out again. 
 
 That these miniature men from far Himalayan 
 foot-hills, whom he could toss with one hand, as he 
 tossed the fur packs of the Great Company on a sum- 
 mer portage, should show the way to the German 
 trenches to a dog-runner of the Rupert Land trails 
 rankled sorely in the heart of the proud Cree. 
 
 " I know," replied his lieutenant, when asked for 
 leave to go out on the next dark night, " but they 
 haven't got a listening post or advanced trench in 
 front of us ; they're too far away and you can't expect 
 to pile into a main trench full of Boches and not get 
 wiped out. You're crazy, and besides, we need you." 
 
FOR THE GREAT FATHER 29 
 
 However, one night, when, anticipating a surprise 
 attack, the eyes of those on watch were straining into 
 the blackness which enveloped them, the heavy silence 
 was broken by a shout from the enemy's line, followed 
 by rapid rifle-firing; then all soimds ceased. For three 
 hours an officer of the battalion, followed by a ser- 
 geant, nervously patrolled his position. At intervals 
 they climbed to the parapet and peered long into the 
 darkness, conversing in low tones. Then, just before 
 dawn broke blue in the east, there was a challenge 
 from a sentinel, followed by a low reply from the 
 gloom outside and shortly over the parapet into the 
 trench crawled a dark shape. A half-frozen, mud- 
 caked figure, with a crimson blotch smearing the neck 
 of his sweater, stood before the captain. 
 
 " Are you hit hard, Lecroix? " Captain Booth asked 
 anxiously. " We thought they had got you." 
 
 " Eet bleed beeg, but ees only leetle t'ing, seer. I 
 lessen by dere trench, but many men camp dere. Eet 
 was no good." And, shaking his head regretfully. 
 Private Lecroix ran a calloused thumb over the razor 
 edge of the long knife he carried lashed to his left 
 wrist by a thong. " Wen I grow ver' cold," he con- 
 tinued, " and tak' de back trail, dey hear me and 
 shoot." 
 
 During the following nights the Germans were 
 heard digging, and shortly they occupied a new listen- 
 ing post a stone's throw from the Canadian lines. 
 Following this discovery. Private Lecroix was ob- 
 served putting the finishing touches on the edge of a 
 second long knife, borrowed from a company cook in 
 
30 TOILERS OF THE TRAILS 
 
 the rear. At last there was fighting ground within 
 reach where he might find the odds as small as three 
 or four to one, and the heart of the Cree beat high, 
 for his great moment was at hand. 
 
 But at dusk, something was in the air on the front 
 of the — d Battalion. Ofiicers talking in low tones 
 hurried up and down the trench. Then support bat- 
 talions from the rear began pouring out of the com- 
 municating trenches, and from man to man sped the 
 news that brigade headquarters had ordered a surprise 
 attack at midnight. 
 
 Joe Lecroix lifted clenched fists to the skies and 
 cursed his luck in French, English, and Cree. These 
 officers in the rear at headquarters were going to spoil 
 his little personal affair out in front, and it was sure 
 to be a night of nights, for the darkness was closing in 
 black as a spruce swamp. He had promised himself 
 a call with a knife in either hand on that listening post, 
 and now it was to be a general attack. 
 
 Shortly the order was read to the men in groups 
 along the trench. 
 
 "At one o'clock the — d Battalion will rush the 
 enemy's first line with the bayonet. At one-fifteen, 
 the artillery will shell the enemy's support trenches 
 to check counter-attack. The advanced trench in 
 front of — d Battalion will first be taken by surprise 
 by a special detail to prevent drawing enemy's fire on 
 main attacking force following." 
 
 To a grim group crowded in a dusk-filled bomb- 
 proof. Captain Booth repeated the order for the 
 night's work. As they listened to the call which 
 
FOR THE GREAT FATHER 31 
 
 meant to many there certain death gradually the ear- 
 nest tones of the officer's voice died into the distance, 
 whUe before their eyes flashed visions of far familiar 
 hills and prairies fresh with rain, of rivers singing 
 through forests green in a Canadian June, of loved 
 faces — and then the deep voice of their leader brought 
 them back overseas to a trench in the mud of the Flem- 
 ish lowlands. 
 
 " Men," he was saying, " I want volunteers to 
 go out and get that sentry-post. This is the job of 
 A Company. If we get them without a racket, 
 the — d Battalion will see the sunrise from the Ger- 
 man's first line. If we make a mess of it, dawn will 
 find most of us out there stiff in the mud. I want 
 single men, for it's desperate work." 
 
 For an instant the men stood motionless, silent, as 
 the officer waited, then the tall figure of Private Le- 
 crotx pushed forward from the rear and saluted. 
 
 " I weel get dem trench, seer," said the Cree, his eyes 
 glittering with excitement, for he knew now that he 
 had not ground the edge of that second knife in vain. 
 
 Then another and another followed the Cree, and 
 passing down the trench, repeating his call. Booth 
 soon had the pick of the company. From these, six 
 were chosen. 
 
 " Lecroix," said the officer, " you've been out there 
 and know the ground. You are in command of this 
 party and will arrange the details at once." 
 
 The general attack was to start at one o'clock, so 
 the six men on whose success depended the lives of 
 hundreds of their comrades made their preparations. 
 
32 TOILERS OF THE TRAILS 
 
 At twelve, the scouting party, stripped to sweaters, 
 jeans and moccasins, wrung the hands of officers and 
 comrades, slipped over the parapet, and crawled out 
 into the Flemish murk to their tryst with death. 
 With a knife in his teeth and another bound to his 
 left wrist with a thong, Joe Lecroix moved snakelike 
 through the slime toward the trench-head fifty yards 
 away. By agreement he was to attempt first to learn 
 the number of men in the post and wait for the others 
 to come up ; they would then divide, three circling to 
 the commimicating trench in the rear, and at a whistle 
 all rush the sentries with the knife. It was a long 
 chance that they might wipe out the Prussians without 
 warning the enemy's main trench, but the desperate 
 nature of the work only steeled the muscles of Joe 
 Lecroix, filling his heart with a wild exultation. 
 
 While his comrades of the forlorn hope had sent 
 home many messages before starting, Lecroix had dic- 
 tated but one, addressed to the factor at Half -Way- 
 House. 
 
 " Meester Nicholson," he had said to the sergeant, 
 writing in the dim lantern-light of the bomb-proof. 
 
 " De huntin' ees ver' good een dees countree. To- 
 night I tak' leetle voyage, not ver' far, to see fr'en'. 
 I bring leetle present for dem, one een each han'. 
 Eef dey like dem present, I see you some tarn een 
 Half -Way-House, maybe. Eef ma fr'en' don' tak' 
 dem present, tell de peop' een Rupert Land dat Joe 
 Lecroix was no good to fight for de Great Fader. 
 "Bo'-jo'! ma Fr'en', 
 
 " Joe Lecroix, 
 " — d Battalion Canadaw Infantree" 
 
FOR THE GREAT FATHER 33 
 
 This was the farewell of Private Lecroix to Rupert 
 Land. But as he wormed his way, foot by foot out 
 into the black silence of the No Man's Land between 
 the trenches to the death-grapple that the hour would 
 bring, there went Avith him the poignant memory of a 
 mound in a far forest clearing, where now the birch 
 leaves of two autumns lay thick under the shifting 
 snow, at the lonely post by the Fading Waters. 
 
 The Canadians, flat in the mud fifty feet from the 
 trench-head, waited for Lecroix to reconnoitre. 
 
 Wriggling on his chest, like a goose stalker of his 
 northern marshes, often stopping for minutes to listen 
 for voices, the Cree noiselessly advanced. Finally, 
 out of the impenetrable gloom, came the low sound 
 of conversation. Whether the parapet was feet or 
 yards away he could not tell. So he crept nearer. 
 Again he heard voices. His keen eyes were unable 
 to pierce the black wall in front. Yet the trench must 
 be close at hand. The Cree moved a few feet. The 
 voices ceased. 
 
 Lecroix waited, hardly breathing, for what seemed 
 an eternity, then he thrust out his hand and touched a 
 rise in the ground. It was the sand-bag parapet. 
 With mad indifference to the risk he ran he rose to his 
 knees, groping up the face of the slope, when his 
 fingers met a cold, unyielding surface. He extended 
 his reach. It was the steel barrel of a machine gun. 
 
 Like a cat the Cree withdrew and circled the trench- 
 head, hoping to find in the rear a vantage-point from 
 which, if a match were stnick to light a pipe, he might 
 determine the number of his foes. Reaching the nar- 
 
34_ TOILERS OF THE TRAILS 
 
 row passageway leading to the listening post, he 
 crawled upon the loose earth thrown up at the sides 
 and waited. Shortly in the trench-head an electric 
 flash was turned on, and in the faint glow the Indian 
 caught a glimpse of two faces bent over pipes and a 
 burning match. Then all was dark again. 
 
 It was late, how late he did not know, but surely 
 well on toward one o'clock. There was no time to 
 lose. To go back to the men waiting for him and 
 bring them up to rush the trench-head might take too 
 long — and if they were heard? Then all was lost! 
 He had been chosen by his captain to do this thing. 
 He could not fail. He had seen but three, the two 
 faces in the light and the back of another standing. 
 This was the way to them, from the rear through their 
 own trench, and — in a flash came the decision — he, Joe 
 Lecroix, would go — alone. 
 
 At Valcartier they had hesitated to enlist an 
 Indian. Well, a Cree should show them all, now, how 
 one of his red children could strike for the Great 
 Father. He would prove that the forests and barrens 
 bred men. Here to-night, in the alien mud of Flan- 
 ders, he would vindicate his dark skin and the honor of 
 his race. He, Joe Lecroix, would go into that den of 
 Prussian wolves and with the naked knife carve the 
 name of the northern Cree high on the honor roll of 
 the soldiers of the Great Father. 
 
 Fearing to disturb loose earth, he followed the 
 trench back, then slipped into it. Down the passage, 
 barely wide enough for a man's body, he crept upon 
 his foes. At length the Indian lay within two yards 
 
FOR THE GREAT FATHER 35 
 
 of the opening into the trench-head, listening. He 
 had already forgotten the men waiting out there for 
 his return, for one o'clock was near and the lives of 
 the — d Battalion now rested solely on the fighting 
 blood of a dog-runner of Rupert Land. 
 
 Grasping a long knife in each hand, his legs set 
 under him like steel springs, the Cree crouched at the 
 opening for the leap, when again the flash illuminated 
 the floor of the trench; but the light only served him 
 the better to drive his first thrusts home as he sprang 
 upon the Prussians. 
 
 Lunging savagely as he rose from the stabbed men, 
 Lecroix knifed the sentry at the machine gun before 
 the German knew the fate of his comrades, but at the 
 same instant, from behind, a bayonet following a 
 German oath was driven deep into the right shoulder 
 of the frenzied Cree, crippling his arm. Brought to 
 his knees, the Indian drove the knife in his left hand 
 upward in a desperate thrust as another heavy body 
 hurled itself upon him from the parapet, and the 
 three, fighting blindly, rolled to the trench floor. But 
 the left hand of the wounded Cree, underneath, finally 
 wrenched free from the melee of arms and legs; the 
 long knife lashed to the wrist of steel found its men, 
 once, twice — and in the trench-head between the lines 
 there was left no sentry to warn the Prussians in the 
 rear of the coming of the Canadians. 
 
 Smeared with mud and blood, his right arm Hang- 
 ing helpless from his bayoneted shoulder, his com- 
 rades of the scouting party found Joe Lecroix with 
 his Prussian dead. Close on their heels, the — d Bat- 
 
36 TOILERS OF THE TRAILS 
 
 talion stole by and leaped, like wolverines, with knife 
 and bayonet into the German trenches before a single 
 machine gun spat its red flash into the blackness. 
 Then the artillery opened on the enemy's supports 
 hurrying up the hoyaux from their second line, and 
 chaos was loosed. 
 
 Dawn broke on the Canadians anchored in their 
 goal, but long before this the tale of how the surprise 
 was made possible by the taking of the Prussian 
 trench-head, single-handed, by Private Lecroix, 
 — d Battalion, had travelled far up and down the 
 lines. 
 
 Days later Booth told an interested group at bri- 
 gade headquarters: 
 
 " When the rest of the advance party, fearing Le- 
 croix had been wiped out, rushed the trench, they 
 found the Indian stanching a bayonet woimd in his 
 shoulder with his good hand, and five dead Huns 
 piled around him. Our stowaway, colonel, has paid 
 for his passage. He saved the — d." 
 
 " And the — d, and Canada, will not forget," came 
 the answer. 
 
 The spring maH-canoe was in from the south at 
 Half-Way-House. Nicholson, the factor, sat in his 
 trade-room devouring the first papers he had seeh 
 since the Christmas dog-team brought into the north 
 the news of the great war. The tepees of Crees in 
 for the spring trade — ^little as the Company now 
 offered for fur — covered the post clearing where 
 huskies yelped and Indian children shouted at play 
 
FOR THE GREAT FATHER 37 
 
 while their elders lamented the ruin of the fur trade 
 by the great war across the Big Water. 
 
 Presently Nicholson gasped, and with eyes bulging 
 sprang to his feet. 
 
 " My glory ! Listen to this ! " he cried to the clerk. 
 
 " Official Gazette: For conspicuous gallantry in 
 taking single-handed an advanced post of the enemy 
 with machine gun, at Ypres, Flanders, in which he 
 was severely wounded, Joseph Lecroix, private, — d 
 Canadian Infantry, awarded the Victoria Cross." 
 
 "Hooray for Joe Lecroix and Rupert Land!" 
 bellowed the excited Scotchman, waving the paper in 
 his hand as he rushed past his open-mouthed clerk and 
 the astonished Crees to teU his wife the news. 
 
 Presently a chattering throng of Indians and 
 whites gathered at the flagstaff in the stockade, while 
 the howls of the huskies added to the clamor. Then 
 Nicholson shouted: 
 
 " Ten volleys of Company shells, lads, for Joe Le- 
 croix and Half -Way-House ! " 
 
 As the red emblem of the Great Company fluttered 
 to the breeze, the explosion of many rifles shattered 
 the age-long sUence of the wild vaUey, loosing the 
 echoes among the timbered lulls, and from a hundred 
 throats was shouted the name of one who had jour- 
 neyed long and dared much in the far lowlands of 
 Flanders for the honor of Rupert Land and the 
 Great Father. 
 
OUT OF THE MIST 
 
OUT OF THE MIST 
 
 " Weel, w'at you t'ink, Loup? De Albanee onke 
 leetle piece now? We do good job to mak' for de 
 sout' shore, eh? " 
 
 With a whine the great slate-gray husky in the bow 
 turned his slant eyes from the white wall of mist en- 
 veloping the canoe to his master's face, as if in full 
 agreement with the change of course. 
 
 The west coast of James Bay lay blanketed with 
 fog from the drifting ice-fields far to the north. 
 Early that morning, when the mist blotted out the 
 black ribbon of spruce edging the coast behind the 
 marshes of the low shore, Gaspard Laroque had 
 swung his canoe in from the deep water. For hours 
 now he had been feeling his way alongshore toward 
 the maze of channels through which the Albany River 
 reached the yellow waters of the bay. 
 
 Fifteen miles of mud-flat, sand-spit, and scrub- 
 grown island marked the river's mouth, and his goal, 
 the Hudson's Bay Company post. Fort Albany, lay 
 on the easternmost thoroughfare of the delta. There 
 waited the dusky wife and children he had not seen 
 since his trip down the coast over the sea-ice at Christ- 
 mas with the dog that now worried at the scent of the 
 invisible flocks of geese that rose clamoring through 
 the fog ahead of the boat. Bought when a puppy 
 
 41 
 
42 TOILERS OF THE TRAILS 
 
 from an east-coast Eskimo at the Bear Islands, the 
 husky had been his sole companion through the lonely 
 moons of the winter before on the white wastes of his 
 subarctic trapping-grounds. 
 
 " Whish you, Loup! Here we go!" 
 Swinging the nose of the boat well off the flat shore, 
 the half-breed dropped to his knees, placed a battered 
 brass compass on a bag in front of him, and, following 
 the wavering needle at his knee, started straight out 
 through the smother of mist across the delta of the 
 many-mouthed Albany. Two, three hours passed, 
 and still the narrow Cree blade bit into the flat surface 
 of the bay as though driven by an engine rather than 
 by himian thew and sinew, when suddenly the husky 
 lifted his nose, repeatedly sucking in and expelling the 
 baffling air. Then with a whine he suddenly sat up, 
 throwing the canoe ofp its bottom. 
 
 " Wat you do, Loup? You crazee? Lie down! " 
 But the husky did not lie down. Instead, his black 
 nostrils quivered in long sniffs as he faintly sensed 
 the strange odor that the moisture in the heavy air 
 almost obliterated. Then the hairy throat of the great 
 dog swelled in a low rumble as he strained against the 
 bow brace, peering into the impenetrable mist. 
 
 " Ah-hah ! " chuckled the Cree, interested. " Wat 
 you t'ink you smell, eh? No goose mak' you so cross; 
 mus' be seal." 
 
 In answer the hair on the dog's back lifted from 
 ears to tail, and raising his nose, he broke into a long 
 howl, a warning which his master knew full well 
 meant that from somewhere out of that wilderness of 
 
OUT OF THE MIST 43 
 
 mist human scent had drifted to the husky's palpitat- 
 ing nostrils. 
 
 Again from the dog's throat rolled the challenge of 
 his wolfish forebears to the hidden enemies, and out of 
 the fog ahead floated the answer of a human voice. 
 
 "Quey! Quey!" called the Cree in reply, and 
 ceased paddling. 
 
 Again the voice called from the fog; again Laroque 
 answered, and started paddling slowly in the direc- 
 tion of the sound. It was a canoe from Moose, he 
 surmised, bound for Fort Albany, and he was nearer 
 the south shore than he had reckoned. Then of a 
 sudden out of the mist ahead broke the black mass of 
 a ship. 
 
 The paddle of the surprised half-breed hung sus- 
 pended over the water while the dog bellowed his rage 
 at the mysterious thing looming through the fog. 
 Clearly it was not the small company steamer from 
 Moose Factory, which was not due at Albany for a 
 month, after the fur-brigades had arrived from the 
 up-river posts, but one of the big ships. 
 
 Still, what was one of the company ships from 
 across the big water, which never entered the treach- 
 erous mouths of the Moose or the Albany, but un- 
 loaded at Charlton Island, a hundred miles east, do- 
 ing here? Then it flashed across the Cree's brain 
 that the vessel had missed the island in the thick 
 weather and had run clear to the Albany flats, where 
 she had anchored. 
 
 "Quey! Quey!" Laroque gave the Cree saluta- 
 tion to the men at the rail of the ship as he paddled 
 
44 TOILERS OF THE TRAILS 
 
 alongside. " You goin' travel up de Albanee? " he 
 added, with a grin. But there came no answer to his 
 question. 
 
 Shortly a gold-braided cap crowning the bearded 
 face of an officer appeared at the rail, and a gruff 
 voice demanded: 
 
 " Where are you from and where bound? " 
 
 " I go to Albanee; been huntin' up de wes' coast las' 
 long snows," replied the Cree, while the excited dog 
 bared his white fangs in a snarl at the strangers peer- 
 ing down at the canoe. 
 
 " Keep your dog quiet! " the officer rasped. 
 
 Gaspard spoke to the husky. 
 
 " Now make your boat fast to the ladder and come 
 aboard." 
 
 After the long months he had spent alone with his 
 dog, the half-breed welcomed the opportunity for a 
 chat and a meal of ship's rations with the crew of the 
 vessel. Furthermore, she was out of her course, in a 
 dangerous position, close in on the Albany shoals, and 
 the captain needed the information he could give him. 
 So lashing his canoe to the rope ladder dropped over 
 the side, Laroque clambered aboard, followed by the 
 yelps of his deserted dog. 
 
 Twice Laroque had seen ships of the Hudson's Bay 
 Company loading furs at Charlton Island, but he 
 knew at once from the looks of the long deck-house 
 and the size of the vessel that she was not one of these. 
 A group of sailors, talking together in a strange 
 tongue, eyed with frank curiosity the swart trapper 
 with gaudy Hudson's Bay sash, skinning-knife at 
 
OUT OF THE MIST 45 
 
 belt, and sealskin moccasins as he followed one of the 
 crew aft. At Charlton Island the men of the com- 
 pany ships spoke English and were friendly to Cree 
 and Eskimo, he thought. Surely there was something 
 queer about this ship. 
 
 On the after-deck three men in uniform were con- 
 versing in low tones. As he approached the group, 
 the restless eyes of the Cree made out, behind the 
 officers, two long shapes covered with tarpaulin, which 
 failed to conceal their heavy metal standards rising 
 from the deck-plates. What could these things be, he 
 wondered. No Hudson's Bay ship carried such 
 strange gear on its after-deck. 
 
 The curious eyes of Laroque were suddenly shifted 
 to the bearded officer who had haUed him from the ship 
 by the abrupt question: 
 
 " What's your name? " 
 
 The domineering manner of the speaker and the 
 undisguised curiosity and amusement with which the 
 others inspected the half-breed, from fox-skin cap to 
 moccasins, stimg the trapper's pride. He had 
 boarded this ship to render the captain a service. 
 The manner of these people was not to his taste. His 
 face set hard as his small eyes met those of his ques- 
 tioner when he answered: 
 
 " Gaspard Laroque." 
 
 " You are an Indian? " 
 
 The tone of the officer brought the blood leaping 
 into the face of Laroque. He, Gaspard Laroque, 
 who held the record for the bitter Fort Hope winter 
 trail from Albany, whose prowess as canoeman and 
 
46 TOILERS OF THE TRAILS 
 
 hxrnter was known from the Elkwan barrens to 
 Rupert House, was no sailor to be treated like a dog. 
 
 Squaring his wide shoulders, he flung the thick hair 
 from his eyes with a toss of the head and said de- 
 fiantly: 
 
 " My fader was French; my moder Cree. But I 
 tell you somet'ing: eef de win' rise from de nord or 
 eas', dees boat land on de beach lak dat," and leaning 
 forward, Laroque snapped his fingers in the captain's 
 face. 
 
 Choking with rage, the officer stood for a moment 
 inarticulate. Then shaking a fist wildly, he loosed a 
 torrent of unintelligible words at the half-breed, who 
 watched him coolly through narrowed eyelids. 
 
 " Answer my questions promptly," the big sailor 
 finally managed to sputter in English, " or I'll have 
 you " Then regaining his self-control, he con- 
 tinued in calmer tone: 
 
 " You say you are bound for Fort Albany? " 
 
 The Cree nodded. 
 
 " How far do you think we are off the mouth of the 
 river? " 
 
 " You are ver' close; onlee t'ree, four mile'. Dees 
 ees bad place for beeg boat, ver' bad." 
 
 The reply had a decided effect on the officers, who 
 conversed for some time in low tones ; then the captain 
 turned to Laroque. 
 
 " You know the Albany River — ^the channel up to 
 the fort? " 
 
 The secret was out: this was not a company ship. 
 These people were strangers to James Bay or they 
 
OUT OF THE MIST 47 
 
 would know that the treacherous river channels were 
 unnavigable for big boats. But what business could 
 a strange craft have at Albany — ^a craft manned by a 
 crew speaking a tongue unknown to the bay, with a 
 captain who spoke English as no skipper of company 
 ship or Newfoundland whaler spoke it? 
 
 " De channel to de fort no good for beeg boat," 
 replied Laroque, his swart features, stone-hard in 
 their immobility, masking the thoughts which harassed 
 his brain. 
 
 " How deep is the channel at low tide? " 
 
 " Onlee seex, eight feet ovair de bar. No good for 
 beeg boat," insisted the Cree, searching the bearded 
 face before him for a glimmer of the purpose behind 
 the question. 
 
 At the reply the captain turned to the men beside 
 him, and spoke rapidly in the alien tongue, while the 
 restless eyes of Gaspard Laroque swept deck and 
 rigging, to fall again upon the shrouded shapes rising 
 from the after-deck which first had baffled his 
 curiosity. His inspection was interrupted by: 
 
 " How far above the mouth of the river is the 
 fort? " 
 
 " Feefteen mile' dey call eet." 
 
 " How large is the garrison? How many guns 
 have they? " 
 
 Laroque shook his head, but he was thinking hard. 
 
 " Do you understand me? " Then the officer 
 articulated slowly as he added: " How many men are 
 at the fort? How many guns are there, and what 
 size? 
 
48 TOILERS OF THE TRAILS 
 
 For a fraction of a second the small eyes of the Cree 
 glowed with the light of a dawning comprehension, 
 but the bold features remained set as if cut from rock. 
 It was clear now. This strange craft meant danger 
 to Fort Albany. She had come into the bay for the 
 furs at the posts of the Hudson's Bay Company, and 
 this captain wanted to know how well those furs were 
 guarded. 
 
 Often, before the fire in his grandfather's tepee, he 
 had heard the old man tell how long ago the French 
 had sailed into Hudson's Bay and burned the fur- 
 posts of the English; how once in these waters the 
 English had fought great sea-fights with the French 
 for the fur trade. But that was many, many long 
 snows ago, in the time of his grandfather's grand- 
 father. For generations now the ancient foes had 
 been at peace. At Fort Albany, the Christmas be- 
 fore, the factor had told him that the French and the 
 English had been fighting side by side since summer, 
 across the big water, against a yellow-haired race who 
 wished to rule the world. But the thunders of the 
 Great War were heard but faintly on the shores of the 
 far, subarctic bay. 
 
 " Answer me! How many men are at the fort? " 
 fiercely demanded the officer, glaring into the face of 
 the Cree. 
 
 The thought of the defenseless loved ones waiting 
 for his return at the little unfortified fur-post, with its 
 handful of company men and red trappers, spurred 
 the active mind of Gaspard Laroque as the flick of a 
 whip on a raw harness sore rouses a lagging 
 
OUT OF THE MIST m 
 
 husky. The French blood of his father spoke in his 
 answer. 
 
 " Ver' manee men. Beeg gun', petit gun', all kin' 
 gun' at de beeg fort at Albanee," Then an inspira- 
 tion led him to point to the tarpauhn-covered shapes 
 on the after-deck that first had puzzled him. " Beeg," 
 he cried; " ver' much beeg dan dose gun'." 
 
 The faces of his audience palpably fell. Calling 
 two sailors, the captain ordered the covering removed 
 from one of the guns. It was the first modern piece 
 of artillery Gaspard Laroque had seen, — the obsolete 
 cannon at Moose Factory were relics of the Riel Re- 
 bellion, — but the fate of Fort Albany was in his 
 hands ; so he smiled derisively at the long steel barrel 
 and polished mountings of the four-inch Krupp. 
 
 " Dat ees leetle pistol to dem beeg gun' at de fort," 
 he laughed, to the amazement of the officers of the 
 German commerce-destroyer Elbe, then added: " An' 
 de men," — the lips of the crafty Cree moved as if he 
 were making a mental calculation, — "ah-hah!" he 
 finally announced, " de men at de fort mus' be, las' 
 time I was dere, two, free hunder." 
 
 The big German captain seized the arm of the Cree. 
 
 " Three hundred men at the fort? " he cried. 
 " Impossible! What are they there for? " 
 
 The swart features of Laroque relaxed in a wide 
 grin at the discomfiture of his enemy, but behind that 
 grin his active mind searched for a plausible answer. 
 In a flash he had it. 
 
 " Las' Chreesmas-tam dey hear ship comin' to de 
 bay to tak' de fur dees summer. Solger' travel from 
 
50 TOILERS OF THE TRAILS 
 
 Canadaw on de snow." Gaspard marvelled at the ease 
 with which he was playing the part. 
 
 It was interesting news for the officers of the Elbet 
 axid, from their scowling faces and excited conversa- 
 tion, the Cree judged, highly disconcerting. 
 
 The council of war continued for some time; then 
 the youngest of the group, a smooth-faced boy of 
 twenty-four, turned to Laroque affably. 
 
 " You have a fine dog in your canoe. We will hoist 
 him aboard with your stuff." 
 
 It was a polite way of informing the Cree that he 
 was a prisoner; but it was a relief to hear that his 
 shaggy comrade was not to be abandoned. For next 
 to the wife and children at Albany Gaspard Laroque 
 loved the great dog down there in the canoe worrying 
 over the absence of his master as he loved nothing on 
 earth. 
 
 " T'anks," said Laroque, gratefully. " I mak' heem 
 good dog on ship." 
 
 The trapper followed the officer forward to where 
 the canoe lay alongside. There was the husky, whim- 
 pering for the return of the man who had deserted 
 him^. 
 
 " Whish you, Loup ! " the Cree called down, lean- 
 ing over the rail. 
 
 The nose of the husky pointed upward in a yelp of 
 delight at the sound of the beloved voice, his thick 
 brush of a tail switching furiously to and fro in an 
 ecstasy of welcome. 
 
 Calling some sailors, the lieutenant said to the Cree: 
 
 " Go below and make your dog fast to the tackle 
 
OUT OF THE MIST 51 
 
 they lower; but remember, if you attempt to escape, 
 you are a dead man," 
 
 Laroque dropped down the ladder to the canoe, to 
 meet the rough caresses of two hairy paws and swift 
 licks from a hot tongue, while the rimible in the deep 
 throat of the husky voiced his joy at his master's re- 
 turn. 
 
 As the nimble fingers of the Cree fashioned a sling 
 from the lowered ropes for his protesting dog, his 
 small eyes furtively swept the rail above him. The 
 muzzles of a dozen rifles covered the canoe. To make 
 a break for the cover of the fog would be suicide. 
 They would get him before he wet his paddle. 
 
 Laroque first sent up his fur-pack and bags, then 
 made his husky fast to the lowered lines. Rubbing 
 the slate-gray head of the worried and perplexed dog, 
 who resented being trussed up in a harness of rope, 
 he gave the signal. Struggling to free himself as he 
 hung suspended, snarling and snapping at his bonds, 
 the infuriated animal was hoisted to the ship's deck by 
 the men above. 
 
 Swiftly following by the ladder, Laroque reached 
 the rail to find pandemonium loosed. There on the 
 deck, surrounded by shouting seamen, the maddened 
 husky rolled over and over with two sailors in a tangle 
 of arms, legs, and rope, while his white fangs struck 
 and slashed right and left in a desperate effort to 
 fight himself clear. 
 
 Leaping from the rail, the Cree threw himself upon 
 his dog, and after a struggle managed to separate the 
 husky from his tattered victims, who bled from slashes 
 
52 TOILERS OF THE TRAILS 
 
 of knife-like teeth in arm and leg, paying dearly for 
 their recklessness in laying hands on a king husky 
 from Ungava whose dignity had been sorely outraged 
 by their roughness. 
 
 Clinging to the dog, whose blood boiled with the 
 fighting lust of a hundred wolfish ancestors, the Cree 
 waited with fear in his heart for the verdict of the 
 ofiicer on the conduct of his shaggy comrade. Surely 
 now they would shoot him or pitch him overboard, he 
 thought. But he looked up with surprise into a smil- 
 ing face. 
 
 " That's a dog after my own heart," cried the young 
 German, surveying with admiring eyes the magnifi- 
 cent animal who, held in the grip of his master, snarled 
 defiance at the group of murmuring sailors well out 
 of reach. 
 
 " De dog was scare' of de rope; he weel not bite 
 dem now," urged Laroque in defense of his friend, 
 and bending over, he poured into the pointed ears set 
 flat on the massive head of the dog soothing words in 
 Cree. 
 
 " Of course, when they hauled him on deck, the 
 sailors put their hands on him, and he upset them like 
 nine-pins. Lucky for them he wasn't loose," replied 
 the officer, and the heart of Caspar d leaped with joy. 
 
 " Cast off that sling and make him fast to the ring- 
 bolt there. He'll cool off soon. I've Great Danes 
 of my own at home." 
 
 " How you come to dees countree? " the Cree 
 hazarded, for he knew the passage through Hudson 
 Straits at that time of year to be a perilous one. 
 
OUT OF THE MIST 53 
 
 The German smiled. 
 
 " I don't wonder you're surprised at our being 
 here," he answered. " It got too hot for us in the 
 north Atlantic. We lost the English cruisers that 
 were chasing us in a Labrador fog. Then the cap- 
 tain decided to come into Hudson's Bay and do a 
 little fur business." 
 
 " You strike de ice in de straits? " 
 
 " Oh, yes ; we were in the floes two weeks — ^nearly 
 lost the ship. But we're here now, and are going to 
 make the English pay for our coal in good fur." 
 
 Laroque made Loup fast with an inch rope to the 
 ring-bolt in the deck, and by means of much rubbing 
 of flattened ears and back-scratching gradually 
 soothed the fret out of the dog. Then he ordered the 
 husky to guard the fur-pack and bags placed beside 
 him, for had Loup been left alone without this re- 
 sponsibility, he would have made short work of the 
 rope with his powerful fangs, and sought out his 
 master. 
 
 The Cree was then led to the captain's cabin. 
 
 Since the first interview the manner of the big Ger- 
 man had undergone a surprising change. The half- 
 breed was received with marked cordiality. He ac- 
 cepted a proffered cigar, but refused to take the 
 liquor pressed upon him. To the wily Laroque the 
 purpose of these men was too evident. They confi- 
 dently expected a half-breed trapper to drink himself 
 drunk at the opportunity and betray the people of the 
 post, all unaware of the danger which lurked so near 
 in the fog off the river. 
 
54 TOILERS OF THE TRAILS 
 
 So overpowering a hatred of these strangers mo- 
 mentarily possessed him that it took all his self-com- 
 mand to keep his hand off his knife and then and 
 there, in the narrow cahin, avenge this insult to his 
 manhood. But the knowledge that the wit and dar- 
 ing of Gaspard Laroque alone stood between the 
 safety of the little settlement at Albany and fire and 
 pillage at the hands of these sea-wolves brought him 
 to his senses. 
 
 Only the glitter in the deep-set eyes of the Cree evi- 
 denced the fierce emotion that had swayed him when 
 the captain slapped his empty glass down upon a 
 table and said: 
 
 " You say they have new guns at Albany. Are 
 they mounted in earthworks surrovmding the post, or 
 is it an old stone fort? " 
 
 Laroque was stimiped, but he caught at the sug- 
 gestion in the first part of the question. He was 
 playing the game through to the bitter end, so he 
 hazarded: 
 
 " Oh, plentee new gun' in dirt-waU and stone-waU. 
 Strong place, dees Fort Albanee." 
 
 It was painfully evident from the sober faces of his 
 hearers that they were impressed with the magnitude 
 of the imdertaking before them. 
 
 For some time the officers debated in their native 
 tongue while the Cree smiled inwardly at the con- 
 sternation in the enemy's camp over the tale of a 
 half-breed they despised. Truly the factor, 
 MacGregor, would never recognize his log build- 
 ings, with their frail dog-stockade, from the descrip- 
 
OUT OF THE MIST 55 
 
 tion which the Germans had drawn from then* pris- 
 oner. 
 
 " Is the channel buoyed? " asked the lieutenant at 
 length. 
 
 Laroque was at a loss how to answer, for the Ger- 
 mans were sure to find the buoys when the fog lifted, 
 unless a scheme which had been forming in his mind 
 should somehow work out, a forlorn hope, to be sure, 
 and dependent on the fog hanging a day or two 
 longer. 
 
 " Sometam few buoy' ; but de channel shif eVry 
 year, and de buoy' no good den. I don' know eef dey 
 tak' buoy' up dees year," he finally answered. 
 
 " Oh, I guess you will remember the river well 
 enough to take small-draft boats up to the fort." 
 The captain winked at the others and laughed loudly. 
 And the Cree's quick brain caught the meaning only 
 too well. They would put him at the wheel of a 
 launch, with a gun at his head to refresh his memory 
 of that shifting Albany channel. Well, a man could 
 die but once. He would beach the launch somewhere 
 below the fort and take his medicine, but he'd carry 
 one or two of these yellow-haired fur-thieves with him 
 when he went. There was a chance that they might 
 be seen through the factor's glasses and the warning 
 not come too late if the post Crees could get at the 
 boat and wipe out the crew. But if the launch should 
 get back to the ship with the information that there 
 were no signs of guns at the unfortified post, they 
 would probably attack at once with the whole ship's 
 crew. 
 
56 TOILERS OF THE TRAILS 
 
 The council of war ceased, and Laroque was asked: 
 
 " Could men land below and approach the post 
 from the rear? " 
 
 This, most of all, was what the Cree feared the 
 Germans might do, for the people at Albany would 
 never know of their coming until they emerged from 
 the scrub behind the post. The yelping of huskies 
 was so common at Albany that no attention would be 
 paid to it. 
 
 " No," he answered; " beeg swamp seex mile' long 
 below Albanee." 
 
 Again the captain poured three fingers of brandy 
 into a glass. 
 
 " Come, now, you're a good fellow," he urged, offer- 
 ing the liquor to Laroque. " The fog is wet; a little 
 drink will warm you up." 
 
 Each of the officers filled a glass, waiting for the 
 Cree to take the one in the captain's extended hand. 
 
 Gaspard Laroque grinned guilelessly into the face 
 of his would-be seducer. 
 
 " De water of fire eet mak' me sick." With a 
 grimace, he placed a sinewy hand over his stomach. 
 
 The eyes of the Germans met in dubious glances. 
 Here was a new breed of barbarian, impervious to the 
 seduction of alcohol. It was astounding, contrary to 
 all experience. Slowly the disgusted captain re- 
 turned the proffered brandy to the table. 
 
 " Now, see here," he began, and, reaching back into 
 the drawer of his desk, brought out a handful of gold 
 coin, clinking it in the Cree's impassive face. " You 
 tell me the truth and pilot the launches up to the fort. 
 
OUT OF THE MIST 57 
 
 and I'll make you rich, drop you anywhere you say on 
 this coast, and nobody will know you met us. I'll fill 
 your canoe with guns, shells, clothes, anything you 
 want. What is this company to you? You sweat, 
 freeze, and starve for your fur, and they cheat you 
 out of it. The Indian is the company's dog. They 
 barely keep you people from starving so that you will 
 hunt more fur. Come, now, you play no tricks on us, 
 and we'll fill your canoe from the ship's stores." 
 
 The German sat back satisfied that his appeal must 
 have an effect on this inscrutable Indian. 
 
 Slowly the swart features of Gaspard relaxed. 
 His small eyes glittered as he said, leaning forward 
 eagerly: 
 
 " You geeve me all des outfit, grub, gun', blanket** 
 if I show you de way up river to Albanee? " 
 
 " Yes, I'U make you a rich man among your people. 
 No one will ever know. When we've got the fur at 
 Albany, we'll land you anywhere you say. But if 
 you lie to us," — the German, with a black scowl, shook 
 a huge fist in the Cree's face — " I'll skin — ^well, you 
 know what you'll get." 
 
 " You fill de cano'? " asked Laroque, ignoring the 
 threat, 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Ver' well, w'en you go? " he asked quickly. 
 
 " When the weather clears a launch will go up to 
 reconnoitre." 
 
 "Ah-hah! " grinned Laroque. " I show de way." 
 And German and Cree wrung each other's hands. 
 
 Laroque was assigned a bunk in the forecastle, 
 
58 TOILERS OF THE TRAILS 
 
 where he took his duffle-bag, leaving the fur-pack on 
 deck with Loup. The crew left the dark-skinned 
 barbarian with the wicked-looking knife in his belt, 
 which had not been taken from him, severely alone, 
 though he met many an ugly look from the sailors, 
 who he knew itched for a chance to wreak their venge- 
 ance on the great dog who had roughly handled two 
 of their mates. 
 
 Although he was watched, for he was never out of 
 sight of a sailor, evidently the orders were to treat the 
 prisoner civilly. Escape was impossible, for his canoe 
 had been slung on the deck-house, and to attempt to 
 reach the shore by swimming would have been pure 
 suicide. So he had the freedom of the ship, for 
 clearly his captors were desirous of his good-will. 
 
 The black night closed in on the anchored ship with 
 no sign of the fog lifting. Laroque obtained food 
 from the galley, and fed his dog, fastened on the main- 
 deck amidships ; then, lighting his pipe, sat down on 
 the fur-pack beside him. Now and then a petty of- 
 ficer, giving the tethered husky a wide berth, strolled 
 by to assure himself that the Cree had not dissolved 
 into the murk. 
 
 When his vigorous puffing had turned the pipe hot 
 in his hand, Laroque took a piece of wire from his 
 pocket and thrust one end into the bowl. For a space 
 he smoked hard while he toyed with the head of the 
 husky lying at his side. Often the dog would open 
 his punishing jaws and close them gently on the hand 
 of the man, at the same time voicing imdying adora- 
 tion in the low rumble in his deep throat. 
 
OUT OF THE MIST 59 
 
 In a few minutes Laroque removed the wire from 
 his pipe, the end of which was now red-hot. Then 
 between his moccasins he stretched on the deck a piece 
 of dressed caribou-hide a foot long by a few inches in 
 width. For a moment he listened for footsteps, then, 
 striking a match, held it close to the hide between his 
 feet and behind his dog's body while he burned slowly 
 into the skin with the hot end of the wire a syllabic 
 character of the Cree tongue. 
 
 Pipe after pipe he smoked as he crouched there in 
 the dark on the deck with his dog, for the wire soon 
 cooled and needed reheating. At the sound of foot- 
 falls the Cree would snuff the match out in his cal- 
 loused hand and wait vmtil the sailor passed. Once 
 the smooth-faced lieutenant, whose watch it was, 
 stopped to chat with him about the Northern sled- 
 dogs and his own Great Danes on his father's place 
 at home, but so thick was the fog that the Cree did 
 not deign even to remove the wire which he was heat- 
 ing in his pipe at the time. 
 
 So, slowly and with much patience, Gaspard La- 
 roque, working imder the kindly curtain of the thick 
 night, was able to cover the strip of hide with the 
 phonetic writing of the Cree. Then grunting into 
 the hairy ears of his friend, and with a parting scratch 
 of the ever-receptive back, the trapper went to his 
 bunk in the forecastle of the ship, which was vocal 
 with the snoring of strong men deep in sleep, to dream 
 of the burning of Fort Albany by a shore party of 
 Germans and the loss of those he loved. 
 
 The following morning Gaspard Laroque went on 
 
60 TOILERS OF THE TRAILS 
 
 deck, to find the bay still hidden by its pall of mist. 
 No boat from the ship would go out in that fog, and 
 he drew a deep breath of relief; for if the mist held 
 on the west coast one more day, — and it looked like a 
 regular July week of thick weather, — these yeUow- 
 haired pirates might yet be foiled of their prey by a 
 despised half-breed. 
 
 The uneventful day was drawing to its close. 
 Again they had had him in the captain's cabin, and 
 again he had refused the brandy all but forced upon 
 him, and had drawn from his imagination a vivid pic- 
 ture of the strength of Fort Albany in guns and men. 
 As to Moose and Rupert House, he had not been 
 there lately, he told his eager audience, but had heard 
 that they had received reinforcements from Canada 
 and were equally prepared for an attack from the sea. 
 
 Truly the stupidity of these strangers was ap- 
 proached only by that of the porcupine, he had whis- 
 pered into Loup's pointed ears after the cross-ques- 
 tioning. The fools had hardly a month to wait to get 
 the winter's himt of aU the James Bay country at 
 Charlton Island, but they seemed ignorant of the 
 existence of the big depot. 
 
 The remainder of the day the Cree had spent with 
 his dog, feeding him in mid-afternoon a double ration 
 from the galley. Time and again he had sprung to 
 his feet from the fur-pack where he sat, and spurred 
 the animal into a fury of excitement by speaking 
 softly, pleadingly to him in Cree. Over and over he 
 had repeated the same words, and at each repetition 
 the husky had leaped to his feet with a whine, ears 
 
OUT QF THE MIST 61 
 
 forward, nerves on edge, electrified; and one of these 
 often-repeated words was the Cree for home. 
 
 That night the anchor-watch on the Elbe drowsed 
 at their posts. For an hour the flood-tide had been 
 sweeping past the ship toward the Albany delta. So 
 thick hung the smother of mist that the single lantern 
 lighting the forecastle-hatchway was drowned at 
 thirty feet. Amidships the husky lay curled, with 
 his nose in his bushy tail, beside the fur-pack. 
 
 Suddenly the animal straightened, lifting his head 
 to sniff the baflfling air. 
 
 " Whish you, Loup ! " came the whispered words 
 out of the blackness. The dog sprang to his feet, 
 every muscle tense. Murmuring in Cree followed. 
 The tail of the husky switched back and forth, but 
 the rising whine was stifled by a familiar hand closing 
 on his nose, while an arm of his master encircled 
 him. 
 
 Swiftly a collar of plaited caribou hide was knotted 
 on the husky's neck. Attached to the collar was a 
 water-proof pouch of sealskin containing the strip of 
 hide with this message in Cree characters burned in 
 with the wire the previous night: 
 
 " Yellow-beard ship off river-mouth. When fog 
 lift' they come in boats to steal fur, bum post. I 
 steer boat close in Whitefish Point. Wait there. 
 Good-bye, wife, children! The good God help you! 
 
 " Gaspabd Laeoque." 
 
 To sever the rope which Loup had chewed nearly 
 through that afternoon was a matter of seconds. 
 
62 TOILERS OF THE TRAILS 
 
 Then the Cree, taking the massive head in his arms, 
 whispered the words that had aroused the husky dur- 
 ing the day. 
 
 "Home!" he said. "Go Home, Loup! Home I 
 Outdere!" 
 
 Though the husky trembled with excitement, every 
 nerve alive, the intelligent animal seemed to sense the 
 necessity for silence as the fingers of the Cree closed 
 again on his nostrils. 
 
 "Home! Home!" Laroque repeated again and 
 again, whispering the familiar names of his wife and 
 the four-year-old boy with whom the dog had grown 
 up from puppyhood and whom next to his master he 
 loved above all others. 
 
 Then he lifted the excited Loup to the rail, while 
 his voice broke in a farewell, " BojOj, Loup ! Home ! " 
 and sent the dog he loved down into the black waters 
 of the bay. 
 
 The heavy body of the husky struck the flat surface 
 with a loud splash. To the eager ears of the Cree, 
 who hung over the rail, peering into the blackness, 
 came a smothered whine of farewell as the dog rose 
 to the surface; then silence. 
 
 Aroused by the noise, the sleepy watch gave the 
 alarm. Shots were fired blindly into the mist. Half- 
 wakened sailors tumbled out of the forecastle-hatch; 
 officers hurried forward from the after-cabin. From 
 the bridge the search-light played around the ship 
 against the impenetrable wall of fog. But the daunt- 
 less cause of the uproar, swept struggling past the 
 bilges by the strong current, had turned with the tide, 
 
OUT OF THE MIST 63 
 
 and was already straightened out on his long journey 
 for the mouth of the Albany and home. 
 
 Meanwhile the Cree, who had glided forward cat- 
 like, on moccasrned feet, flattened himself against the 
 raU when the first of the crew passed himj then, fol- 
 lowing the hurrying men, showed himself to a boat- 
 swain with a lantern, who led him aft to an officer 
 vainly demanding the cause of the disturbance. 
 
 " I thought at first you had been foolish enough to 
 try to swim ashore," said the young lieutenant. " I 
 objected to putting you imder guard, so I'm glad 
 you're here." 
 
 " My husky chew de rope an' tak' to de water," 
 vouchsafed the Cree. 
 
 " Your dog? Too bad! He'll never reach shore 
 in this fog." 
 
 The severed rope at the ring-bolt told the story. 
 It was evident that the husky had taken French leave 
 as the German jokingly pointed out to the Cree. 
 And Laroque now knew that no one had seen him 
 steal out of the forecastle. 
 
 " I thought you said the dog wouldn't leave your 
 fur-pack." 
 
 "Weel, I guess he hungree for rabbit-meat," re- 
 plied Gaspard, lightly, but his sick heart was out 
 there in the black night toward the Albany delta with 
 his faithful friend battling his way blindly home. 
 
 It was all a matter of luck, Laroque told himself, 
 as he lay in his bunk. He had waited until the tide 
 was running hard before sending the dog off, and 
 Loup was too clever to fight the current; he would 
 
64 TOILERS OF THE TRAILS 
 
 swim with it. He had learned that as a puppy. But, 
 unable to see the shore in the fog, he was more than 
 likely to be swept into the main channel of the river 
 and miss the flats to the north, where he could find 
 the beach. In clear weather he would bet his life 
 that the tireless Loup would make the post by sun- 
 rise. Once landed, the fifteen miles up the river 
 shore would be nothing to the best sled-dog on the 
 west coast. Loup would go directly to the cabin, and 
 Gaspard's wife would see the pouch on the collar and 
 take the message to the factor. It all depended on 
 whether the husky in the scent-defying fog could 
 smell the shore and bush and turn in instead of swim- 
 ming blindly on up-river with the tide until exhausted. 
 Then the Cree prayed to the Great Master, whom 
 the Oblat fathers at Albany had taught him to rever- 
 ence, for the life of his dog and the safety of those 
 he loved. 
 
 For another day the fog-bank hung on the west 
 coast ; but in the evening a fresh northwest breeze fol- 
 lowed the invisible sunset, and shortly the stars were 
 out. The low islands of the Albany delta lay a dark 
 smear on the western horizon. 
 
 At daylight the Elbe was alive with activity. An 
 open launch lay off her leeward beam with an evil- 
 looking quick-firer mounted on the bow. Other boats 
 still at their davits were being overhauled and loaded 
 with guns, ammunition, and provisions. Laroque 
 was given his breakfast, then ordered to report to the 
 captain aft. 
 
 " You are to pilot a scouting-party in the launch up 
 
OUT OF THE MIST 65 
 
 the river. If you run the boat aground or do not im- 
 mediately obey the orders of the officer in charge, 
 you'll be shot instantly. Any sign of trickery, and 
 you're a dead man. If you serve us well, I stand by 
 my promise. You get your canoe filled from the 
 ship's stores and a bag of gold." 
 
 As the officer snapped out the English words in his 
 German accent, the fingers of the Cree itched for the 
 handle of the knife at his belt. His swart face went 
 still darker with the hate in his heart for this yellow- 
 beard whom he would split as he split a dead caribou 
 had they but stood face to face, alone, on the beach. 
 
 In command of the first officer of the Elbe, twenty 
 men, armed with rifles, crowded into the launch. The 
 Cree was glad that the friendly subaltern was not de- 
 tailed with the party. Laroque was ordered to a post 
 beside the wheel, handled by a quartermaster. Close 
 at his back stood the lieutenant. Why, the Cree only 
 too well knew. 
 
 The run to the mouth of the Albany was quickly 
 made. As the launch entered the river the heart of 
 Gaspard Laroque raced under the strain of uncer- 
 tainty as to what the next few miles would disclose, 
 for if Loup had reached the post, the Crees would 
 have lost no time in cutting the channel-buoys, long 
 spruce saplings driven into the mud. 
 
 They rounded a sand-spit, and for miles had a clear 
 view of the river. Breathless, the Cree leaned for- 
 ward, shading his narrowed eyes with his hand as he 
 searched for the first buoy marking the channel. 
 Quickly glancing from the east to the west shore for 
 
66 TOILERS OF THE TRAILS 
 
 the lob-stick ranges of spruce fixing the position of 
 the buoy, he again looked up-stream. His heart 
 drummed in his chest. The sun-glare on the water 
 bothered his eyes, so once more he sought the lob-stick 
 ranges. Again he swept the locality where the sap- 
 ling should rise twenty feet above the water. He 
 sucked a great breath into his lungs and expelled it, 
 for he saw that the buoy had been cut. 
 
 A thrill of pride swept Gaspard Laroque. Loup, 
 his Loup, had won through out of the wilderness of 
 that black night to the shore and Albany. His shaggy 
 courier had fought his way home. The post knew of 
 the coming of the Germans. 
 
 The Cree turned coolly to the officer, who held an 
 automatic pistol pressed against the small of the half- 
 breed's back. 
 
 " I not see de buoy. One was dere." He pointed 
 in the general direction of the channel. 
 
 "Never mind the buoys; you know the channel. 
 She draws only four feet. Take her on up the river." 
 
 " Ver' weel. I can show de way, but I lak' to see 
 de buoy." Truly, he swore to himself, he would show 
 the way to these men; for with the buoys out of the 
 way, his course would not be questioned, and the old 
 buoy off Whitefish Point, six miles above, was not 
 so close to the shore by a hundred yards as he would 
 steer that launch. 
 
 The tide was high, and there was little chance of 
 his grounding the small-draft boat even on the flats, 
 but as the Cree with the pistol at his back directed the 
 course of the man at the wheel, he was thinking harder 
 
OUT OF THE MIST 67 
 
 than he ever had thought in his life; for one short hour 
 
 would see him a dead man or else Well, it would 
 
 all be over soon. 
 
 On sped the launch past the low Albany shores. 
 Not a buoy broke the surface of the wide river-mouth. 
 The gunners in the bow with the one-pounder stood 
 with eyes glued to their glasses. Huddled in the 
 cock-pit, aft of the gasoline engine, the sailors sat in 
 silence, grasping their rifles. 
 
 As the swift craft put mile after mile of the river 
 behind her, the low scrub of the shore gradually gave 
 way to heavier growth, and at last Whitefish Point, 
 thrusting its spruce-clad silhouette far into the stream, 
 opened up ahead. 
 
 Though the pulse of Gaspard Laroque pounded 
 like a dog-runner's, his grim features gave no evidence 
 of the tension under which he labored. Only a mile 
 now, he thought. 
 
 The launch had covered half the distance when the 
 Cree turned to the officer at his back and pointed 
 ahead. 
 
 " De channel swing een close to dat point. Out- 
 side onlee free, four feet water." As he spoke, he 
 stealthily shifted his footing. The helmsman, ordered 
 by the officer, swung the launch inshore. 
 
 Shortly the Cree again protested: 
 
 " We run on de flat. Channel ees een shore." 
 
 Again the course of the boat was changed. 
 
 As they neared the point, the straining eyes of the 
 half-breed were fixed on the willow scrub covering the 
 upper beach. But suddenly his attention was at- 
 
68 TOILERS OF THE TRAILS 
 
 tracted to a line of barely perceptible ripples at right 
 angles to the channel, dead ahead. 
 
 "Ah-hah ! " he breathed. " Nets ! " and every mus- 
 cle in his body stiifened. 
 
 The launch was almost on the nets when a gunner 
 in the bow raised a shout of warning. Like a flash 
 the Cree dropped to his knees, driving his knife into 
 the body of the oflficer, as the automatic exploded. 
 At the same instant the silence of the shore was 
 shattered by a volley from a score of rifles in the wfl- 
 lows. Again and again, in quick succession, the thick 
 bush spat salvos of death on the doomed craft. 
 
 Its propeUer fouled in the nets, the launch swung 
 helpless in the current with its cargo of wounded and 
 dead. At pointblank range of fifty yards the Cree 
 hunters and Hudson's Bay men had wasted no shells. 
 
 Launching their hidden canoes, the company men 
 boarded the boat, to find under the bodies of the dead 
 ofiicer and the helmsman the insensible form of Gas- 
 pard Laroque with a bullet-hole in the back. 
 
 They buried the dead on the beach, and with the 
 few wounded survivors of the scouting party started 
 for Albany. Two days later his scouts reported to 
 MacGregor, the factor, that the morning foUowing 
 the ambush at Whitefish Point a large launch, after 
 twice grounding on the flats at the river-mouth, had 
 returned to the Elbe, which had shortly raised anchor 
 and steamed away to the north. 
 
 It was Christmas at Fort Albany. The day previ- 
 ous the mail-team from Moose had arrived with im- 
 
OUT OF THE MIST 69 
 
 portant despatches from Ottawa. Assembled on the 
 snow before the log trade-house, the post people and 
 the Crees in for the New-year festivities faced the 
 factor. 
 
 " Gaspard Laroque! " called the deep bass of Mac- 
 Gregor. The half-breed stepped forward from the 
 crowd. 
 
 " In behalf of the Canadian Government, I present 
 you with the Military Cross for conspicuous bravery," 
 and the factor pinned the bronze medal on the em- 
 barrassed Gaspard's wide chest amid the shouts of the 
 Crees. 
 
 " Loup ! " cried the factor. At the sound of his 
 name, the husky, imleashed by the Cree's wife, trotted 
 up to his master, ears forward, tail in air, suspicious 
 of the strange proceedings. 
 
 While Laroque held the dog, MacGregor took 
 from its wrappings a brass-studded collar, from which 
 hung a large silver medal, and read the inscription: 
 
 " Presented by the Canadian Government to Loup 
 for distinguished conduct in carrying by sea and land 
 the message which saved Fort Albany from the 
 German raider Elbe, July, 1915." 
 
 On the reverse side of the medal were the words, 
 " For Valor." 
 
 Amid the yelping of the dogs and the cheers of the 
 people of Fort Albany, the neck of the great husky 
 was encircled with the credentials of his nobility, and 
 from the factor's broad palm he received on his shaggy 
 shoulders the accolade of his knighthood. 
 
A LITTLE TRAGEDY AT 
 COOCOOCACHE 
 
A LITTLE TRAGEDY AT COOCOOCACHE 
 
 The last rays of the June sun flashed from the 
 dripping paddle of one who drove his birch-bark up 
 the wild reaches of the wilderness river as though life 
 itself were at stake. And it was. 
 
 All day and half the preceding night Francois 
 Hertel had poled and paddled and portaged, putting 
 mUe after mile of the racing St. Maurice between his 
 canoe and the raUroad camp at Coocoocache, The 
 long hours of pull and drag and thrust which his will 
 forced upon the wire cables that were the muscles of 
 his back and arms had long since left them numb to 
 all sensation. Still, automatically, they drove pole 
 and paddle. 
 
 On he crept up the river as the day died, now rising 
 to thrust viciously through quick-water, again drop- 
 ping to his knees to push stubbornly through the 
 slower stretches. Once or twice, as the twilight slowly 
 masked the stream behind him, the voyageur threw a 
 quick look backAvard. But well he knew that with the 
 six hours' start he had on his pursuers no crew from 
 the railroad camp at Coocoocache could overhaul 
 Francois Hertel, famed from Timiskaming to the 
 Roberval as a canoeman. When once he reached the 
 forks where the Manuan and the Ribbon met the main 
 stream he could laugh at those behind. For there 
 
 73 
 
74 TOILERS OF THE TRAILS 
 
 three roads led into the wide north, and the hopeless- 
 ness of his pursuers' quest would turn them back. 
 
 Since midnight, when he had reached his canoe, 
 cached in the brush above the camp of the Trans- 
 continental contractors at the End-of-Steel, and 
 pushed north, he had given little thought to the man 
 lying back there in the shack with a knife in his heart. 
 That had been the inevitable result of the dead man's 
 infamy. He had paid in the coin of the north, and 
 there was an end to it. 
 
 But the raw agony of his own home-coming would 
 live with him by day and by night until the good God 
 took what was left of Fran9ois Hertel. The grief 
 that had struck him from the blue sky on his return 
 from his winter hunt to find his home a charred ruin 
 and his wife Marie gone — drowned, or dead some- 
 where in the forest, no one knew which — ^would com- 
 panion him into the gray years. Again and again as 
 he drove his canoe up the long quick-water he had 
 recalled the joy that had been his when he turned the 
 bend above the Hudson's Bay Company post at Coo- 
 coocache — Cree, for Nest of the Gray Owl — and his 
 glad eyes sought the cabin on the island he had built 
 the previous summer for his young bride. How he 
 and Philippe, his partner, had sung, thinking she 
 might hear them before they came in sight around the 
 bend, and then — the thrust of pain that reached his 
 heart at the grim spectacle of his ruined home. Song 
 there died on his lips, never to return. 
 
 They had hastened to the island, but nothing in the 
 ruins enlightened them as to the fate of Marie. Hop- 
 
A TRAGEDY AT COOCOOCACHE 75 
 
 ing to find her safe at the post, they had crossed the 
 river. There the frenzied husband listened as the 
 factor told the pitiful tale. 
 
 A week before Hertel's arrival the yelping of the 
 huskies had brought the post people from their beds 
 to find the cabin across the narrows in flames. A 
 canoe went over at once but f oimd no traces of Marie 
 Hertel or her husky dog. In the morning the factor 
 discovered in the mud of the shore the deep imprint 
 of boots. That was the only clew. They recalled, 
 then, that twice during the spring Marie Hertel had 
 told the factor's wife of the visit of a canoe from the 
 railroad camp. But the sight of her rifle and the long 
 fangs of the husky had driven off the drunken con- 
 tractor, Walker. 
 
 Some days after the fire the body of the poisoned 
 dog was found in the brush near the camp. But the 
 ruins of the cabin gave up no further clew to the fate 
 of Marie Hertel. Killed and thrown into the river 
 to cover the crime, doubtless, the factor surmised. 
 
 It was a madman who listened with drawn face to 
 the ghastly tale. At the end he shook off, like chil- 
 dren, those who attempted to hold him back from 
 starting for the camp across the river. Hertel had 
 tossed his rifle into his canoe and was shoving off 
 when the factor's warning checked him. 
 
 "Wait, Fran9ois! We only suspect; we don't 
 know. If you go over there now they might get you 
 before you get Walker. Wait and see your friend 
 Desaules up-river before you make yourself an out- 
 law." 
 
76 TOILERS OF THE TRAILS 
 
 I* 
 
 So the desperate trapper had waited. 
 
 First he went down-stream with Philippe, search- 
 ing the shores for the drowned body of his wife, but 
 in a week returned from the hopeless quest. Up the 
 Right-of-Way, at the gravel-pit, no one could give 
 him any information, the Frenchmen in the con- 
 tractor's gang meeting his inquiries with shrugs of 
 the shoulders ; but in their eyes was sympathy. Still, 
 they knew nothing. 
 
 At the engineer's camp ten miles above he fovmd 
 his old friend Desaules, whom he had guided across 
 to the Abitibi years before on the preliminary 
 survey. 
 
 " Yes; he always had a streak of yellow, Francois; 
 we've had plenty of trouble with him on this job, but 
 he has political influence at Ottawa. Wait for the 
 government police; they are due in a few days for 
 the investigation." 
 
 " I will save dem de trouble. Au revoir! " And,^ 
 gripping the hand of his friend, Hertel had started 
 back to Coocoocache, There a Frenchman of 
 Walker's gang came to him secretly at the post and 
 told him that he had seen Walker's canoe returning 
 from the island the night of the fire. 
 
 The contractor's fate was sealed. 
 
 That afternoon Hertel erected a cross of hewn 
 spruce on the site of his ruined home and with a hard- 
 wood stick burned into the white wood the words: 
 " Marie Hertel." 
 
 The following morning Walker was found dead in 
 his bunk with a knife in his heart. Attached to the 
 
A TRAGEDY AT COOCOOCACH:^ 77 
 
 steel haft of the knife was a scrap of birch bark on 
 which were written these words: 
 
 " For cross on islan I leeve dees cross. 
 " Francois Hertel." 
 
 9 
 
 When Hertel reached the forks the stars were out. 
 Passing the mouths of the Manuan and the Ribbon, 
 he chose the main stream, travelling far into the night. 
 As the moon dipped into the blue-black silhouettes of 
 the Laurentians he went ashore, carried his canoe 
 and outfit into the forest, where he cooked some food 
 and slept. In less than twenty-four hours he had 
 fought his way up forty miles of the St. Maurice, 
 much of it white water and poling current. But little 
 it mattered to Fran9ois Hertel that he had performed 
 a feat few men in the north could equal, when far 
 down the river, in some lonely backwater, the stricken 
 '^ody of her whom he cherished lay floating by the 
 shore unburied. 
 
 One evening, a month later, two men sat in the 
 trade-house of Lost Lake Post discussing a bottle of 
 whiskey with the factor. 
 
 " Now, look here, McCready, you don't mean to 
 tell us that Hertel didn't show up here after he mur- 
 dered Walker? " said one of the strangers. 
 
 " I tell you," replied the fur-trader vehemently, 
 " that I haven't seen Fran9ois Hertel this year; but I 
 warn you now that the luckiest thing that can happen 
 
78 TOILERS OF THE TRAILS 
 
 to you two will be never to come up with him. He'll 
 wipe you out if you do." 
 
 " Come, now, you don't suppose that any French- 
 man in this provinc^ could get the best of us two? " 
 answered the detect^, bristling with anger. " We've 
 run down too many of these bad men." 
 
 " I've advised you to start down-river; now, if you 
 get hurt it's not my fault," growled McCready, his 
 eyes glittering. *' I know Hertel. If Walker had 
 done to me what he did to rran9ois, I'd have killed 
 Walker, and if you government people came trackin' 
 me into the bush I'd kill you, too, before I'd stand 
 trial. Now you knpw where I stand, Mr. Dobson." 
 
 " Well, I'll give you Hudson's Bay Company peo- 
 ple fair warning that, if you intend to protect out- 
 laws from justice when the government has ordered 
 them held if they show up at a post, you're going to 
 see some trouble with Ottawa. I'll take care, also, 
 that the commissioner at Winnipeg hears of this." . 
 
 "All right," returned the stubborn Scot; "make 
 your complaint, but take your crew and start down- 
 river to-morrow. This post is too small for us three; 
 besides, you've been interfering with the trade. To- 
 day you tried to take some of my Crees down to the' 
 railroad to get information out of them." 
 
 " That ain't so, McCready," broke in the third man, 
 " the Crees are lying to you." 
 
 " My Crees don't lie; they have to learn that sort of 
 tljing from government detectives," replied Mc- 
 Cready, making no effort to conceal his contempt. 
 V I'm only sorry Hertel ain't here. He'd make the 
 
A TRAGEDY AT COOCOOCACHE 79 
 
 two of you take water right enough. There ain't an 
 abler man or better rifleshot in the north country than 
 that Frenchman." 
 
 " Well, McCready," said Dohspn, " he'll come back 
 with us, nevertheless, if we falon with him, or he'll 
 lie where he's hit." 
 
 The factor laughed sarcastically as he said: " I 
 guess you never heard of his fight at La Tuque with 
 the lumberjacks. He licked a herd of 'em single- 
 handed down there two years ago. You wouldn't 
 start him sweatin' if he took hold of you with his 
 hands, and with a knife " 
 
 The door of the trade-room swung open with aC 
 crash. On the threshold stood a tall stranger. Beads 
 of sweat trickling down his swart features and corded 
 forearms, from which the sleeves of his shirt were 
 rolled, together with his quick breathing, gave evi- 
 dence of recent hard paddling. His deep-set eyes 
 •met the gaze of the government men, who faced the 
 door at the interruption, with a challenging glitter. ' 
 
 McCready sprang to his feet, upsetting his chair. 
 Then, recovering himself, he cried: 
 
 " Bonjour, Pierre! How are the people at Half- 
 Way-House? " 
 
 Ignoring the Question, the voyageur strode toward 
 the table wherflpe government men exchanged fur- 
 tive glances. But McCready, stepping in front of 
 him, seized his hand, saying as he did: " What brings 
 you from Half -Way-House, Pierre? " 
 
 The set mouth of the stranger momentarily threat- 
 ened a smile and the eyes softened. 
 
80 TOILERS OF THE TRAILS 
 
 " T'anks, ma fr'en'j but eet ees not Pierre from 
 Half -Way-House." Then, addressing the men at the 
 table, he said: " I am Fran9ois Hertel from Coocoo- 
 cache." 
 
 At the words Dobson got to his feet, turning to the 
 wall where his revolver hung in its holster from a 
 wooden peg. But Hertel was there before him, and, 
 seizing the detective by the shoulders, with a quick 
 wrench hurled him half-way across the room to the 
 floor. 
 
 Dobson's mate, surprised by the suddenness of the 
 movement, stared irresolutely at the Frenchman, who 
 was now between the government men and the corner 
 where their Winchesters stood. 
 
 Hertel smiled as he watched Dobson slowly regain 
 his feet. Then he repeated: 
 
 " I am Fran9ois Hertel. I hear you cum to Los' 
 Lac to tak' me. You lose tam; here ees you* man. 
 At you' plaisir!" 
 
 McCready, leaning against the hewn spruce plank- 
 ing of his counter, laughed loudly at the discomfiture 
 of his guests. 
 
 " Yes, Dobson, I was wrong; my eyes are growing 
 weak. I can swear that this man is Francois Hertel. 
 There he is! Take him!" 
 
 " Damn you, McCready," cried the exasperated 
 and already cowed detective, " I'll bet you put this 
 job up ! " For an instant he looked longingly 
 at the rifle out of his reach, then snarled at 
 Hertel: " If you're Fran9ois Hertel, you're under 
 arrest for the murder of Walker at Coocoocache. 
 
I AM FRANlOIS HERTEL 
 
A TRAGEDY AT COOCOOCACHE 81 
 
 You'd better give yourself up and come peace- 
 ably." 
 
 " Ah-hah! So dat ees de way de win' blow? " de- 
 risively rejoined Hertel, leaning carelessly, arms 
 folded, against the wall in the manner of a cat baiting 
 a mouse. " I t'o't you cum to tak' rran9ois Hertel 
 wid you' han'. Now, w'en he travel long way to 
 geeve you chance, you two beeg, strong man you try 
 scare him wid beeg talk, but you 'fraid soil you' han' 
 on Fran9ois Hertel, eh? " 
 
 Hertel's white teeth flashed in a dangerous smile as 
 he waited a movement from his enemies. As they 
 made none, he took the pistols from the wall and flung 
 them through an open window, while his erstwhile 
 hunters helplessly bit their beards in their rage. 
 With a few words the Frenchman had wrung the 
 braggadocio from them as one wrings the water 
 from a towel. They knew their master and made 
 no move to interfere when Hertel took their 
 Winchesters in his left arm and, shaking hands 
 with McCready, turned sarcastically at the 
 door. 
 
 "And dey sen' you to tak' me, rran9ois Hertel, 
 down riviere? Tell dem dat Fran9ois Hertel goes 
 far into de nord w'ere leetle boy detec' will get los' on 
 hees trail. Nex' tam sen' some men to fin' heem, not 
 leetle boy wid heart of rabbit." 
 
 And with an "Au revoir, ma fr'en'," to McCready, 
 he disappeared into the night. 
 
 " Well, you two are a fine pair of buckos to come 
 up here into the bush after a man," sneered Mc- 
 
82 TOILERS OF THE TRAILS 
 
 Cready as Dobson slouched into a chair on the exit of 
 Hertel. 
 
 " If I ever saw a couple of full-grown men take 
 water, I saw it to-night." 
 
 " What could we do? " protested Dobson. " He 
 had us blocked from our guns." 
 
 " Yes, but he didn't turn them on you. He dared 
 you to put your hands on him. He just wanted to 
 tie you into a few knots and let you go. If he'd 
 cared to, he'd 'a' knifed you both before you knew 
 what was happening to you or shot you where you 
 sat." 
 
 " You needn't fear, McCready; he ain't seen 
 the last of us," sullenly replied the government 
 man. 
 
 McCready's Scotch blood went hot. 
 
 " What, after a man has shown you up for a pair 
 of chicken-hearted tenderfeet? You'll leave this post 
 to-morrow morning! Understand? You've made 
 enough trouble among my Crees already. If you 
 stay here much longer you'll be wakin' up some 
 mornin' with a knife in your chest as Walker did; 
 only this time it'll be a Cree who'll leave it there, and 
 for the same reason that Walker got his. To-morrow 
 your canoe heads south. Good-night ! " 
 
 On their return the government police reported that 
 they had found no traces of Fran9ois Hertel in the 
 headwater country of the St. Maurice. Then the 
 authorities raised a hue and cry from Ottawa to Lake 
 St. John, offering a reward for the murderer, dead or 
 alive, and despatched packets by the main river routes 
 
A TRAGEDY lAT COOCOOCACHE 83 
 
 into the north. For Walker had political friends in 
 Ottawa, and the majesty of the law needs must be 
 sustained. 
 
 In the autumn, when the birch leaves gUded the 
 forest floor and the geese honked south, the canoes 
 returned from their quest — but not with Frangois 
 Hertel. 
 
 Later, in December, every dog-team that jingled 
 into a Hudson's Bay post of Rupert Land carried a 
 government order from Ottawa commanding the ar- 
 rest of Fran9ois Hertel, French trapper, wanted for 
 the murder of James Walker at Coocoocache on the 
 St. Maurice. And many a hardy fur-trader, to whom 
 this document came, shook his head sadly, wondering 
 what had led his old friend Fran9ois to make an out- 
 law of himself — Francois Hertel, by whose side he 
 had lain under the stars on more than one summer 
 voyage or with whom he had smoked by the roaring 
 birch logs of winter camps. And not a few to whom 
 came this command smiled grimly as they read, for 
 already had the tale of the burned shack and the cross 
 at Coocoocache reached them. For in the north such 
 news travels fast and far. And of those who smiled 
 there was not one but would have fed, clothed, and 
 outfitted the renegade Hertel, had he come seeking 
 succor from the ruthless northern winter, and sent 
 him on his way with a Godspeed. For Hertel 
 had but exacted in good northern coin every far- 
 thing of debt Walker owed him. And it is a law of 
 the north that men pay their debts — and collect 
 them. 
 
84 TOILERS OF THE TRAILS 
 
 So it fell out that one January day a dog-team with 
 a man ahead breaking trail and another reeling at the 
 gee-pole of the sled was floundering into the drive of 
 the blizzard that had howled south upon the Height- 
 of-Land country from ice-bound James Bay. For 
 two days, in the teeth of it, the team had labored up 
 the great wilderness lake, now losing the hardened 
 trail underneath and circling in the snow until they 
 found it; then plunging on xmtil the weary trail- 
 breaker and the lead-dog, blinded by the white scourge 
 that beat their faces like a hail of shot, lost the trail 
 again. Then would follow the circling in the soft 
 snow — ^work that wrung the last ounce of strength 
 from the spent dogs — until the team was again on 
 hard footing. 
 
 So for two days they had struggled, facing the 
 pitiless norther. Somewhere at the foot of the great 
 ice-bound lake they knew there was shelter and food 
 and fire. Somewhere, but how many white miles 
 away? Before the new snow had wiped out the trails, 
 Cree trappers had told them that Flying Post lay at 
 the other end of the great lake two sleeps to the west. 
 In two sleeps they had f oimd the lake, but there they 
 met the blizzard. And now the last whitefish had been 
 fed the huskies and the pemmican and tea-bags were 
 empty. 
 
 When the tired dogs finally lay down in their traces 
 and refused to go on against the drive of the gale, the 
 exhausted men took counsel. 
 
 " We'd better go ashore and make camp while 
 there's light, John," gasped the younger man as the 
 
A TRAGEDY AT COOCOOCACHE 85 
 
 two snow-crusted figures stood with backs to the sting- 
 ing wind. 
 
 "All right, Mac; but if this keeps up to- 
 morrow we'll never see the post," shouted his com- 
 panion. 
 
 So they drove the team to the shore and made a 
 supperless camp in the shelter of the spruce. The 
 huskies bolted two pairs of moccasins cut into strips 
 and boiled, while the men drank hot snow-water in a 
 vain attempt to stay their hunger, for as yet John 
 Bolton could not bring himself to kill one of his faith- 
 ful dogs until hope of reaching the post soon was past. 
 In that case the weaker dogs would have to go to save 
 the others and their masters. 
 
 All night the white fury beat down from the north. 
 The next morning, with belts tightened against the 
 long hours in the drifts, they started. All day they 
 battled through the deep snow against the bitter wind, 
 which cracked their frost-blackened faces, buried in 
 the hoods of their capotes as they were, until facing 
 its fury was unspeakable torture. Still the fast- 
 weakening men and dogs kept on, for warmth and 
 food and life lay ahead, somewhere over these pitiless 
 hills. 
 
 When the early northern night neared, the wind had 
 blown itself out and finally died on Grand Lac Pierre, 
 and the dusk crept out from the black timber of the 
 shores over its white shell to meet a slow-moving dog- 
 team and two men. But, with the dropping of the 
 wind, the increasing cold of a silent January night on 
 the Height-of-Land so numbed the limbs of weakened 
 
86 TOILERS OF THE TRAILS 
 
 men and dogs that they dragged themselves vsdth dif- 
 ficulty through the soft snow to the shore. 
 
 " It's all up, Mac! " groaned the older man; " we've 
 got to kill one of the dogs and rest up and get our 
 strength. To-night it'll go fifty below. We must 
 eat or freeze." 
 
 The younger man, too exhausted to answer, stum- 
 bled on through the new snow, followed by the team. 
 Twice that day he had fallen and failed to rise, beg- 
 ging the other to go on and leave him. Twice that 
 day John Bolton had dragged him to his snow-shoes 
 again and forced him on by sheer will, but the boy had 
 now come to the end of his strength, and that night 
 the cruel cold would cut into their very marrow. 
 
 Back in the forest near the shore they found a pro- 
 tected spot, made camp as best they could, and started 
 a fire. Then Bolton took his rifle from its case and 
 shot the weakest of the exhausted huskies. The ex- 
 plosion of the gun echoed loudly from the near hills. 
 
 The men had started to skin the dog when a rifle- 
 shot from the lake shattered the freezing air. 
 
 The men looked into each other's faces. 
 
 " Some one heard our shot," mumbled Bolton. 
 " I'll fire again." 
 
 Again came an answering shot. Then both men 
 dragged themselves to the shore. Coming up the lake 
 was a dog-team. Bolton went out on the ice and 
 waved his arms. 
 
 In a few minutes a tall dog-runner in caribou-skin 
 capote belted with a red Company sash, leading a 
 team of northern huskies, approached them. 
 
A TRAGEDY AT COQCOOCACHE 87 
 
 "Quey! Quey!" called the stranger; and then, 
 seeing they were white men: " Bon jour! I hear de 
 shot an' cum back from de islan'." 
 
 Dropping his mittens, Bolton seized the proifered 
 hand. 
 
 " We've just shot one of our dogs. We're bound 
 for Flying Post and are starved out. Can you give 
 us some grub? This blizzard about finished us." 
 
 "Flying Pos'?" The tall dog-driver raised his 
 ice-hung eyebrows in surprise. 
 
 " Dees ees not de trail to Flying Pos'. Dees ees 
 de beeg arm of Grand Lac dat run' nord t'irty mile. 
 You lose de trail in de narrow' back dere w'en you not 
 see for de snow." 
 
 " Thank God we met you, then! " exclaimed Bol- 
 ton. " We would have starved out for we were head- 
 ing north." 
 
 " Lucky t'ing, for sure. You get los' easee on dees 
 lac. Flying Pos' ees two day travel wes'. I got 
 plentee deer meat and tea, but leetle flour. I was go 
 to de pos' for flour w'en I heard de shot." 
 
 The next day the famished men and dogs feasted 
 on the French trapper's freely offered caribou steaks, 
 bannocks, and whitefish, and rested, then started with 
 their guide for the post. Three days later the dog- 
 teams drew up in front of the whitewashed log trade- 
 house of Flying Post. 
 
 In the absence of the factor, Haig, who had gone to 
 Lake Expanse, they were greeted by the rat-faced 
 half-breed clerk in charge. 
 
 As Bolton and Mclntyre entered the trade-room, 
 
88 TOILERS OF THE TRAILS 
 
 followed by their guide, the half-breed started slightly, 
 then shook hands with the newcomers. Shortly the 
 still hungry men were doing justice to the cooking of 
 the factor's wife while the Frenchman tied the dogs 
 inside the stockade, where they were safe from attack 
 by the Company huskies, and fed them from the post's 
 supply of whitejBsh. 
 
 Later the clerk found Bolton smoking in the factor's 
 quarters. 
 
 " You come from de Gatineau country? " offered 
 the half-breed, taking a chair and lighting his 
 pipe. 
 
 " Yes, we left the post at Squaw Lake three weeks 
 ago," replied Bolton. 
 
 "A-hah, you go far! It ees bad mont' to travel 
 for de beeg win'." 
 
 " We are bound for Abitibi, but we had to shoot a 
 dog and may not get a team. Could you sell us two 
 dogs? " 
 
 " We got no dog to sell, but " — the clerk winked 
 one of his small, beady eyes — " maybe you don' go 
 to Abitibi, Meester Bolton." 
 
 Ignoring the remark, Bolton looked long at the 
 breed, then said: 
 
 " We stood a pretty good chance of not making this 
 place; we were starved out and heading north, but 
 by luck this Frenchman Pierre heard our shot when 
 we killed one of the dogs." 
 
 " Pierre? " The clerk raised his eyebrows and 
 smiled. 
 
 " Yes, Pierre. What's the matter? " 
 
lEM PAPIER SAY ONE t'OT'SAXD DOLLAR,' 
 
A TRAGEDY AT COOCOOCACHE 89 
 
 " You hear maybe dat de government hunt for 
 man in dees coimtree; off air beeg monee for heem? " 
 
 " Yes ! " Bolton's face went stone-hard. 
 
 " Wal " — the clerk took from his pocket the 
 despatch which had reached the post with the Christ- 
 mas packet — " dem papier say one t'ousand dollar for 
 de man dat catch Hertel." 
 
 Mclntyre started to speak, but a look from the 
 older man silenced him. 
 
 "Well, what's your point?" asked Bolton dryly, 
 after an interval, still holding the weasel eyes of the 
 clerk with steady gaze. 
 
 " Have you not guess, Meester Bolton? " 
 
 " No; what is there to guess about? " 
 
 The clerk looked quickly to see that they were 
 alone, then said: "Pierre, your Pierre" — the half- 
 breed finished in a whisper — " ees dees Francois 
 Hertel!" 
 
 "Well, I'll be damned!" ejaculated Mclntyre; 
 but John Bolton's expression did not change a 
 hair. 
 
 " He cum in before de winter mail arrive and get 
 grub. Haig don' know he killed a man on de St. 
 Maurice. But now we know, Meester Bolton. Now 
 we know. I been trading for grub wid heem jus' 
 now. He leave to-day — queek. 
 
 " Half dees monee ees mine, half yours, Meester 
 Bolton; but he ees ver' bad man, and you weel have 
 care to tak' heem. Shoot heem in de leg, I t'ink. 
 He ees bad man wid knife." 
 
 The last words were uttered in a whisper, for foot- 
 
90 TOILERS OF THE TRAILS 
 
 steps sounded in the outer room, and the Frenchman 
 straightway appeared in the door. 
 
 " I cum to say bonjour, Meester Bolton. I go back 
 to my trap lines." 
 
 The small eyes of the clerk shifted rapidly from 
 one to the other, while Mclntyre sat studying quizzic- 
 ally the face of his chief. Bolton rose and wrung 
 Pierre's extended hand. 
 
 "Good-bye, Pierre!" he said. "You pulled us 
 out of a narrow squeak, and we want to thank you 
 again. You can be sure I won't forget you." Then, 
 turning to the half-breed: " Joe here has got the idea 
 that you are Francois Hertel. I thought I'd tell you, 
 for he might make trouble for you if you showed up 
 here in the spring. Good-bye, Pierre, and good luck 
 to you!" 
 
 The Frenchman shook hands with Mclntyre, then 
 turned to the clerk, whose narrow face went chalk- 
 white at Bolton's words. 
 
 " Leetle Joe here, he said dat? " The fingers of 
 Pierre's right hand toyed with the handle of his 
 knife as he smiled at the trembling half-breed who 
 shrank back in his chair. " Joe, he ees funnee boy. 
 I tell Fran9ois Hertel eef I see heem. Ha, ha! 
 Joe he ees ver' fvmnee." And the trapper was 
 gone. 
 
 The three men sat in silence until the jingle of bells, 
 a shout, and the crack of a dog-whip told them that 
 Pierre was off on the lake trail. Then the clerk 
 turned on Bolton. 
 
 " You are fine beeg man to send to de bush to tak' 
 
A TRAGEDY AT COOCOOCACHE 91 
 
 rran9ois Hertel. Why you let heem go and one 
 t'ousand dollar wid heem? " 
 
 " So you think we're government police, do you? " 
 
 " Oua ! " cried the clerk angrily, " and you have fear 
 totak'heem?" 
 
 " I tell you once and for all that we're government 
 engineers, not police. We're bound to Abitibi Lake 
 on the provincial boundary survey." 
 
 " Oua," repeated the clerk with a shrug. " You 
 can' fool me. What you do here dees tam in de beeg 
 snow eef you don' hunt for Fran9ois Hertel? " 
 
 "All right, have it your own way, then; but, as we 
 had your testimony alone to the fact that Pierre was 
 Hertel, and as I wouldn't take your word against 
 a skunk, I guess, as far as we're concerned, he is 
 still Pierre the trapper. And good luck to him; 
 he's a man, and that's more than I can say for 
 
 you." 
 
 In impotent rage the half-breed rushed out of the 
 room. Then young Mclntyre turned from the win- 
 dow, through which he had been gazing down the 
 white miles of Grand Lac Pierre, and reached for 
 Bolton's right hand. 
 
 " John," he said huskily, " it was hard for you to 
 do it, but I knew you would." 
 
 " I could do no more for a man who took the chance 
 he did to save our lives," replied Bolton. 
 
 " Did he suspect us of being police? " 
 
 " Yes, but he took the risk of bringing us in just 
 the same." 
 
 " When did you first get the idea who he was? It 
 
92 TOILERS OF THE TRAILS 
 
 never entered my mind that Hertel would have done 
 what he did when there was a price on his head." 
 
 " Two days back on the trail he said something 
 that made me suspicious. He tried to draw me out. 
 For cool nerve I've never seen his equal. I believe 
 Walker deserved what he got, and I hope they never 
 get him, for he's a man." 
 
 " What are you going to report, John? " 
 
 " I'm going to report to the chief at Ottawa that a 
 Frenchman answering the description of Francois 
 Hertel was found by Harricanaw Crees frozen on the 
 Abitibi trail. Is that right, Mac? " 
 
 " That's right! " And the government men sealed 
 the compact with a grip. 
 
 Spring had wandered north to the Height-of-Land. 
 The ice, honeycombed by the May sun, had already 
 left a thousand lakes. Choked streams, whitening 
 into cascades and wild rapids on their way to the sea, 
 sang madly of soft days that June would bring. 
 Birch ridges shimmered in pale green above valleys 
 aflower, and the buds of willow and alder reddened 
 the river shores while every breeze roamed heavy with 
 wood odors. On spruce spire and balsam top the 
 throats of thrush, warbler, and whitethroat swelled 
 with the joy of the young year. 
 
 But in the heavy heart of Franpois Hertel leaped 
 no answering chord of joy as he journeyed by lake 
 and portage and river trail to the headwaters of the 
 St. Maurice. In his fur pack were two skins of the 
 silver fox and many of marten, mink, and otter. Fate 
 
A TRAGEDY AT COQCOOCACHE 93 
 
 had been kind to his lonely winter trapping, for he 
 brought to the spring trade a rare winter's hunt; but 
 it mattered little to him how rich was his fur pack, for 
 he was not bringing it to Marie at Coocoocache, 
 Marie — how often he had lived over again the black 
 days of his home-coming the year before ! Night after 
 night, day after day, throughout the long snows of 
 the bitter winter, as he smoked by his lonely fire or 
 followed his trap lines, he had thought and thought of 
 the days that would come no more to him and Marie. 
 Like a wolf they had driven him, an outcast, into the 
 wilderness, and what had they done with her? The 
 thought that her body, undiscovered, might still await 
 decent burial seared into his brain. 
 
 Day by day as he pushed on through the forest, 
 waking with life, to the headwater lakes of the great 
 river, one idea obsessed him: that never again would 
 he turn the bend above Coocoocache to behold Marie 
 waiting on the shore for his return. All that was 
 passed forever. All hope and life and love were gone 
 now from Fran9ois Hertel, outlaw, hunted from 
 Timiskaming to the Labrador border for the killing 
 of the black-hearted drunkard, Walker. 
 
 Such had been the thoughts that daily, through the 
 long winter, had become his ceaseless torment, whicH 
 companioned him on his long voyage; and with such 
 was his brain tortured when, at last, he reached the 
 waters of the St. Maurice. 
 
 He had resolved to go to Lost Lake Post to trade 
 his fur and then to Coocoocache secretly. From there 
 he would journey on down the river, even to the settle- 
 
94 TOILERS OF THE TRAILS 
 
 ments, in search of her grave. MeCready was his 
 tried friend and could give him the news of the posts 
 hundreds of miles below. 
 
 How he longed to see his island again and the pitiful 
 cross he had placed over the ruins of his home! He 
 wanted to talk to the factor's wife of Marie and the 
 happy days that were dead. He would bring sod 
 from the post stockade, forest flowers and wild shrubs, 
 and make his sacred ground beautiful. It would be 
 her wish, for in Ufe she had loved them so. And each 
 spring, if he were alive, he would come, even from 
 the uttermost north, and keep the forest from en- 
 croaching on his altar; and she, looking down from 
 heaven, would see him and know he had not forgot- 
 ten. 
 
 So one day in early June the canoe of Francois 
 Hertel grated on the beach at Lost Lake Post. 
 
 " Upon my soul, Fran9ois Hertel, where did you 
 come from? I thought you'd be up on Hudson's Bay 
 by this time!" gasped MeCready as Hertel walked 
 into the trade-house, 
 
 " I come long way, but not from de Bay. I go to 
 Coocoocache." 
 
 " Coocoocache? " cried the astonished Scotchman. 
 " Man, are you crazy? They've offered a reward of 
 a thousand dollars for you, dead or alive. You might 
 run into government people down there on the Trans- 
 continental." 
 
 " I have met dem before," and Hertel's set moutH 
 relaxed into a smUe. 
 
 " I know, Fran9ois, but they're not all cowards. 
 
A TRAGEDY AT COOCOOCACHE 95 
 
 Some are good men, and you don't want to walk into 
 trouble," pleaded the factor. 
 
 " Well, I go to Coocoocache, jes' de same. I wan' 
 to know eef dey found — Marie," and, in spite of his 
 efforts to control his emotion, the deep-set eyes of the 
 voyageur went misty with tears as he uttered his wife's 
 name. 
 
 " The winter packet brought no news of her," said 
 McCready gently, " only this government order for 
 your arrest. They may be waiting at Coocoocache 
 now on the very chance of your showing up there this 
 spring." 
 
 " I mus' go. Eet ees no matter — ^my life — now. 
 Dey mus' found her down riviere somewhere. I mus' 
 go to her grave." 
 
 " Well, I suppose you'll go, anyway, but travel by 
 night and don't hang around Coocoocache; the rail- 
 road people will hear of it and try to get you. This 
 thing will blow over in a year or so if you keep out 
 of the way." 
 
 So Hertel traded his fur with McCready and left 
 for Coocoocache. 
 
 It was a soft afternoon on which he neared the bend 
 in the river above the post. A few hours before he 
 had passed, at a distance, the construction camp and 
 contractors' shacks at the End-of-Steel, now moved 
 miles above the location of the previous summer. 
 Doubtless, thinking him a travelling Cree, they had 
 paid him no attention. 
 
 As Hertel neared the bluff which shut from his 
 view the buildings of the post below and the island 
 
96 TOILERS OF THE TRAILS 
 
 with its lonely cross, a great wave of grief over- 
 whelmed him kneeling at his paddle. His head sank 
 forward on his chest while his shoulders shook with the 
 emotion that engulfed him. For a space he remained 
 with head bowed, in the attitude of prayer, as the 
 canoe drifted inshore. Then, when the paroxysm 
 passed, he shook the black hair from his eyes and, 
 straightening up, resumed paddling. But as he 
 neared the turn of the river his moving lips framed 
 the words again and again: " Ma pauvre Marie! Ma 
 pauvre Marie!" 
 
 In a moment the post and island broke into view. 
 There, with the sun on it, as he had left it a year ago, 
 a hunted man, stood his cross. 
 
 Heedless of the danger he ran in being seen, he 
 paddled directly to the island. All that he held most 
 dear, the sacred memories of the happy weeks he had 
 spent there with her, all that love had meant to him, 
 was symbolized by that pitiful spruce cross on which 
 was burned the name: " Marie Hertel." 
 
 Here the agony of months of solitary brooding, the 
 torture of a year of despair, overwhelmed the heart- 
 broken trapper, and, throwing himself on the ground, 
 one arm around the base of the cross, he gave himself 
 up to his grief. Later, at sunset, he crossed to the 
 post, 
 
 "Fran9ois Hertel, or I'm no Scotchman!" cried 
 the surprised factor as Hertel entered the trade- 
 house. 
 
 " Bonjour, ma fr'en' ; I have come back." The 
 men warmly gripped hands. 
 
A TRAGEDY AT COOCQOCACHE 97 
 
 " But don't you know there's a reward for you? 
 The government people may show up any time, look- 
 ing for you. You can't stay here, man." The fac- 
 tor seemed greatly excited. 
 
 " I come to fin' weder dey found her down 
 riviere. I go to see her grave." Hertel had but ojie 
 thought. 
 
 Suddenly there were sounds of women's voices in 
 the stockade outside. Then a white figure flew 
 through the door, open-armed, and upon Fran9ois 
 Hertel's ears fell a voice as though from the hushed 
 valley of death. 
 
 " Fran9ois, mon cher Francois ! " 
 
 Hertel turned to behold the beloved face of his lost 
 wife Marie, while two warm woman's arms circled his 
 neck and soft lips kissed him again and again between 
 her sobs. 
 
 Trembling with surprise and joy, the strong man, 
 suddenly transported from dumb despair to mad de- 
 light, cried like a child as time and again he held his 
 wife from him to look at her, then crushed her to his 
 heart. In a chair the factor's wife wept silently, 
 while the big Scotchman rubbed his eyes with red fists 
 as he smiled at the reunited lovers. 
 
 It was long before Hertel could talk coherently, so 
 great was his emotion. At last he asked: 
 
 " But w'ere deed you go dat night dey los' you? 
 Philippe and me, we hxmt de shore far below de 
 Vermilion for you. We t'ot you drown or dead 
 in de bush. Oh, ma cherie, I have suffer so in de 
 heart!" 
 
98 TOILERS OF THE TRAILS 
 
 With her arms around his neck Marie related how 
 she had escaped from Walker and put out into the 
 river in an old canoe without a paddle. Carried by 
 the swift current far down the river, the canoe some- 
 how passed the first rapids without swamping. At 
 daylight, many miles below the post, she landed, but, 
 fearing Walker, had decided to attempt to reach the 
 settlement at La Tuque. A day later, starved and 
 exhausted, she was picked up by Vermilion River 
 Crees, who told her she could not reach La Tuque 
 alone because of the rapids. With them she remained 
 until December, when they brought her by dog-team 
 to La Tuque when they came in to trade. There she 
 learned of the return of Hertel and the death of 
 Walker. In the early spring she had come to the 
 post hoping to get word to him if he were still in the 
 St, Maurice country. 
 
 When Marie finished her story the factor handed 
 Hertel a letter. 
 
 " This came in the spring mail, Fran9ois," he said. 
 
 As Hertel could not read English, the factor 
 opened it and read: 
 
 " In March last it was reported to the authorities at 
 Ottawa that the body of Franpois Hertel had been 
 found frozen on the Abitibi trail by Harricanaw 
 Crees. Pierre, the trapper, who was at Flying Post, 
 on Grand Lac, in January must trade his fur in the 
 James Bay country for a year or two." 
 
 The letter was signed: " A friend of Pierre." 
 
 " Ah-hah," exclaimed Hertel, smiling, " Meester 
 Bolton has pay hees debt! To-morrow, Marie, we 
 
A TRAGEDY AT COOCOOCACHE 99 
 
 leeve for de far nord, and dees tam, and alway', you 
 travel in de bow of de canoe of Fran9ois Hertel," and 
 he took her into his great arms. 
 
WHEN THE PRINCE CAME HOME 
 
WHEN THE PRINCE CAME HOME 
 
 The door of the trade-house at Rupert was thrown 
 open, admitting a blast of biting air and a flurry of 
 powdery snow, followed by the rugged figure of 
 Bruce Cristy, son of the factor. 
 
 " The Queen of Sheba's pups have come, father," 
 he cried, " and Michel says they're the likeliest-looking 
 litter he's ever seen at Rupert House." 
 
 The factor, grinning with pleasure, reached for his 
 foxskin cap. " We'll have a look at 'em. It's time 
 we had some good dogs at Rupert." 
 
 Now the Queen, an Ungava-bred husky, bought 
 when a puppy from a Whale River Eskimo, was far 
 and away the best sled-dog at the post, and the pride 
 of the big Scotchman. Massive of bone and frame, 
 with the stamina of a caribou, she had won, as a year- 
 ling, a place in the traces of the Hudson's Bay Com- 
 pany's winter packet that took the mail north up the 
 east coast. Therefore, it was with high hope that 
 Cristy floundered over the narrow dog-trail in the 
 deep snow to an unoccupied shack behind the trade- 
 house. 
 
 In the open door of the building stood two of the 
 shaggy veterans of the mail-teams, peering curiously 
 with wolfish eyes into the interior, while from a deep 
 
 103 
 
104 TOILERS OF THE TRAILS 
 
 throat within a low, menacing rumble, like the muffled 
 threats of a September northwester gathering on 
 James Bay, held them at the threshold. For there 
 was not a slant-eyed husky at Rupert House that had 
 not felt the white fangs of the Queen, who long since 
 had asserted her sovereignty by right of the power 
 that lay in the limge and slash of her punishing jaws. 
 
 As the factor and his son entered the shack, the 
 growl changed to a whine of recognition from the 
 great dog, who lay on some old sacking in the corner, 
 with six blind, whimpering balls of fur. 
 
 " Well, Queenie, old girl, you've sure done yourself 
 proud," chuckled the delighted Cristy, patting the 
 head that sought his hand. " Let's have a look at the 
 family." 
 
 One after another he picked up the squealing pup- 
 pies, his practised fingers sensing the bone and build 
 of each as if he were fit already for the collar and 
 traces of the winter trails. 
 
 " Hello! Here's one that's the picture of the old 
 lady herself," he continued, lifting a squirming puppy 
 for inspection. 
 
 " Look ! He's got the same white star on his chest, 
 and the four white socks," cried Bruce, 
 
 " Yes, and in bone and build he's the best of the 
 lot," added his father. " I guess we'll name him 
 Prince right here, for he's got the right to the title. 
 Some day he'll lead the winter packet a day ahead of 
 time into Whale River, and Mackay'U have to find a 
 new joke. We'll have some sled-dogs worth tlieir 
 whitefish at Rupert yet, lad." 
 
WHEN THE PRINCE CAME HOME 105 
 
 That year the spring came early to Rupert Land. 
 The melting snow of April brought to the huskies a 
 swift release from the winter's thraldom to coUar and 
 traces, and snow-shoes were discarded by the little 
 colony for the slush-proof sealskin boot. Then the 
 ice began to boom and chum and grind day after day 
 past the post to the salt bay. The great river, swoUen 
 by the floods from far Mistassini, crept foot by foot 
 up the high shores until it seethed and hissed almost 
 at the level from which, for two centuries, the brave 
 little fort had hurled a mute defiance at the sullen 
 north. Bound for the marshes of the west coast, long 
 lines of gray geese, led by veteran couriers of the air, 
 crossed like caravans the blue desert of the sky. 
 White hosts of wavies, their snowy wings flapping in 
 the sun's rays like huge banners, passed high overhead 
 to their nesting-places in nameless arctic islands. In 
 the wake of the gray and the white squadrons came the 
 little brothers of the air, duck and yellow-legs, war- 
 bler and thrush. And soon, from the neighboring for- 
 est, piped the heralds of soft days in Rupert Land. 
 
 With the waxing of the spring the sons and daugh- 
 ters of the Queen grew into hulking, leggy puppies, 
 always in the way of every one, including themselves. 
 But reckless indeed of the safety of his throat would 
 have been the half-breed who kicked them from his 
 path while the restless, narrow eyes of the Queen kept 
 vigilant watch. And it was not long before the 
 puppy with the white socks and star-emblazoned chest 
 began to realize the promise of his earliest youth. 
 Soon his fiercer spirit, aided by the might of his stur- 
 
106 TOILERS OF THE TRAILS 
 
 dier build, brought his kinsmen into subjection, and 
 he became the acknowledged leader in every puppy 
 plot and misadventure about the trade-house and fac- 
 tor's quarters. 
 
 It was the Prince who was found under the trade- 
 house endeavoring to bolt Cristy's best pair of sealskin 
 boots. It was the Prince who, unobserved, gnawed 
 into a bag of flour, and on appearing before his 
 family, an apparition in white, was set upon fiercely 
 by his kinsmen in a body, who failed to recognize him 
 in his new role of purity. Not imtil he had admin- 
 istered to them a sound drubbing, in the course of 
 which activity he lost his disguise, was he readmitted 
 to membership in the family circle. Again, it was the 
 Prince who, at the tender age of three months, demon- 
 strated to the half -wild tom-cat of the Cristys that a 
 husky pup with a star on his chest and the teeth of an 
 otter was not to be cuffed with impunity. Thereafter, 
 Lynx curled a tail somewhat shorter than he formerly 
 wore, and affected a decided hitch in his gait. 
 
 But though the Prince soon acquired a reputation 
 for a peppery temper and the love of a brawl, Bruce 
 Cristy early discovered that he, alone, of the children 
 of the Queen, not even momentarily could be lured 
 from the side of his master by coaxing or bribery. 
 Early he acquired the trick of rushing full-tilt at 
 Bruce, in his lumbering puppy gait, yelping as he 
 ran, only, on reaching him, to seize a hand in his open 
 jaws, and raising his slant eyes, to wait with fiercely 
 wagging tail for the other hand to grasp his nose and 
 roll him on his wriggling back. 
 
WHEN THE PRINCE CAME HOME 107 
 
 So the northern summer passed, and with the first 
 bite in the air came the gray and the white squadrons 
 from the north to feed on the succulent goose-grass of 
 the south coast marshes. Under Bruce the Company 
 Indians manned the goose-boats and left for the an- 
 nual hvmt on Hannah Bay for the winter's supply. 
 With the exception of Cristy and some of the older 
 post Crees, Rupert House was devoid of men. 
 
 It was a soft, lazy afternoon at the end of Septem- 
 ber — ^weather which always precedes the cold storm 
 that ushers in the Indian summer on the bay. A week 
 of the latter and the stinging winds would sweep down 
 from the north, bringing the brant and the first flurry 
 of snow. The dogs of the factor's mail-teams were 
 sprawled around the trade-house, asleep in the sun. 
 But sleep this golden afternoon was not for the off- 
 spring of the Queen. Vainly, under the lead of the 
 Prince, master of sports, they had romped from trade- 
 house to river shore, and back to the spruce forest in 
 the rear, in search of adventure. They had pawed 
 and pulled at the inert anatomy of the Queen, only to 
 be met with dire threats of chastisement in the form 
 of low growls and lazy exposure of white canines as 
 her head fell again in sleep. At last, in desperation, 
 the hulking Prince picked up a bleached caribou shin- 
 bone, and shaking it as he would a rabbit, challenged 
 his comrades to take it. 
 
 With yelps of delight the pursuit began. Pell- 
 mell around the trade-house went the pack at the heels 
 of the big puppy. Back again they came, scrambling 
 over each other in wild confusion as they slid down 
 
108 TOILERS OF THE TRAILS 
 
 the steep river bank in full cry. Then up again and 
 over to the forest raced the squealing huskies, hard in 
 pursuit of one too fleet to be overtaken. Soon, out of 
 the forest galloped the Prince, and headed for the 
 trade-house. Arriving there, he stopped and allowed 
 his nearest pursuers to come almost within reach, then, 
 shaking his bone in their faces, he fled up the river 
 shore toward the mission and the cabins of the post 
 Indians a few hundred yards off. 
 
 The puppy had not covered half the distance when 
 from the grass back of the mission-house rose a big 
 white husky, opening his red mouth in a wide yawn as 
 he stretched. For a moment he surveyed the authors 
 of the bedlam which had wakened him; then, with ears 
 erect and hair on neck bristling, began to walk slowly 
 through the long grass toward the oncoming puppies. 
 Farther away, near the Indian shacks, other huskies 
 rose, shook themselves, and turned in quest of the 
 cause of this ruthless interference with their slumbers. 
 
 When the Prince and his pursuers had covered half 
 the distance to the mission-house, the white sentinel 
 watching them threw back his head and roused the 
 post with the long-drawn call to arms of the half -wild 
 descendants of the timber-wolves. 
 
 The challenge of the white husky stopped the romp- 
 ing puppies in their tracks. Young as they were, 
 they already knew the meaning of the slogan. Sens- 
 ing the peril into which their heedless crossing of the 
 post dead-line had placed them, they turned and fled 
 for the safety of the trade-house. At the same time 
 the Prince, far in front of his pursuing comrades, 
 
■s 
 
 ^.■ 
 
 ^ 
 
 
 THE PKINCE SLASHED WITH HIS SHARP TEETH 
 
WHEN THE PRINCE CAME HOME 109 
 
 stopped, dropped his bone, and, with ears pricked and 
 hair on neck and back stiflfly erect, stood for an instant 
 watching the white husky, who, as he trotted toward 
 him, repeated the long howl of battle. 
 
 Immediately from the Indian shacks came the 
 answer of the supporting columns. Then realizing 
 the fate in store for a half -grown husky from the fac- 
 tor's quarters, caught alone near the mission-house, he 
 lifted his head with a yelp of defiance and tuLrned back. 
 But the delay due to this momentary act of bravado 
 cost him dear. As they raced, the white dog, followed 
 at a distance by his comrades, gained on the puppy at 
 every boTind. Xow he crossed the frontier, but the 
 trade-house still lay two hundred yards away. On 
 came the big husky, yelping as he ran, until hardly a 
 hundred feet separated them. Then, aware of the 
 hopelessness of his attempt to escape, the puppy gave 
 poignant proof of the blood royal that raced in his 
 veins. Suddenly swerving, he checked himself, and, 
 crouching with head lowered and feet braced widely 
 apart, the fighting rage of a himdred wolfish forebears 
 blazing in his narrow eyes, he awaited the rush of the 
 white husky with a snarl. 
 
 The big dog, surprised at being met jaw-to-jaw by 
 his quarry, whom he anticipated pulling down from 
 behind, and imable to stop himself, leaped as he 
 reached the puppy, while the Prince, springing for- 
 ward at the same instant, slashed with his sharp teeth 
 a deep gash in the white body as it passed over him. 
 Gathering himself like a flash, the big dog turned and 
 jumped back, sinking his long fangs ioto the shoulder 
 
110 TOILERS OF THE TRAILS 
 
 of the infuriated son of the Queen. But no yelp of 
 fear or pain left the throat of the puppy as he closed in 
 what would have been a death-grapple with his heavier 
 and more skilful adversary, had not, at the instant that 
 the white husky's superior weight bore him down, a 
 gray streak shot through the air from behind, and a 
 great slate-gray body catapulted into the white one, 
 rolling it over and over, while punishing fangs slashed 
 again and again into the white shoulders and chest, 
 seeking the throat. Then, over the three, like tides on 
 a reef, the yelping pack from the Cree cabins, and the 
 sled-dogs of the mail-teams, hurrying to support the 
 Queen, met. Instantly there arose over Rupert 
 House the wild din of two-score huskies, mad with the 
 lust for blood, battling to the death. 
 
 Leaving the white husky gasping out his life 
 through a ripped throat, the Queen, infuriated with 
 the sight of the blood of her own body welling from 
 the wounds of her puppy, stood over him, fighting 
 like a demon. Lunging, slashing right and left with 
 her knife-like fangs, she battled with her comrades 
 against overwhelming odds, for the life of her son. 
 But, though the dogs of the mail-teams were far out- 
 numbered, they were picked animals, chosen for 
 strength and endurance, veterans of a score of similar 
 frays, and fighting together, as is their custom, they 
 were more than holding their own, when the big fac- 
 tor, striking right and left with an axe-helve in each 
 hand, sprang into the middle of the yelping, blood- 
 smeared riot of enraged huskies. Yet not until rein- 
 forced by the Crees left at the post, and after a mer- 
 
WHEN THE PRINCE CAME HOME 111 
 
 ciless use of the club, did Cristy finally separate the 
 maddened brutes and stop the fight. Snarling their 
 smothered rage as they limped, at times stopping to 
 lick their wounds, slowly the dogs of the Crees were 
 driven to their quarters. And behind them in the 
 grass they left the stiffening bodies of five of their 
 number that never again would mingle in fur-post 
 brawl. 
 
 The battle over, Cristy turned anxiously to the 
 Queen, who lay, oblivious to her own wounds, beside 
 the limp body of her son, washing with her healing 
 tongue the ugly slashes in chest and shoulder, 
 
 " How did this thing start, Antoine? I wouldn't 
 lose this puppy for a dozen black-fox skins," he asked 
 his half-breed clerk as he carried the torn body of the 
 Prince to the trade-house. 
 
 " First tarn I hear de husky shout, I look and I see 
 de white dog chase de Prince pup. De oders run, but 
 de pup he stop and mak' fight. Den de Queen, she 
 travel lak timber-wolf for de white husky. Dat 
 Prince, he ver' cross for a pup. I tink he mak' some 
 beeg fight w'en he grow up; pull de sled lak bull- 
 moose." 
 
 " So it was the Queen who killed the white husky? " 
 
 "Ah-hah! She keel heem lak he was snow-shoe 
 rabbit." 
 
 When they had washed and dressed the wounds of 
 the Prince, they placed him on the sacking in the 
 shack where he had come into the world. There the 
 Queen, hurt but superficially, kept guard night and 
 day. Then the goose-boats returned from the Bay 
 
112 TOILERS OF THE TRAILS 
 
 with their feathered freight of gray geese, wavy, and 
 brant. 
 
 On hearing the news, Bruce hurried to his hurt 
 puppy. In the doorway of the shack stood the 
 Queen, who put her great paws on his chest in an en- 
 deavor to lick his face; then led him to the sacking in 
 the corner of the room. At the sound of Bruce's 
 voice, the fevered puppy raised his head with a feeble 
 yelp, struggling to get to his feet, but his bandaged 
 chest and shoulders held him helpless, so he lay with 
 wrinkling nose extended toward his master, his bushy 
 tail beating the floor. 
 
 The stalwart young Scot, with more than a suspi- 
 cion of mist in his eyes, kneeling, pressed his bronzed 
 face against that of the overjoyed puppy. 
 
 " So they chewed up my Prince pup, did they? " he 
 whispered into a pointed ear. " Well, they got what 
 they deserved. He fought the white husky with the 
 red eyes, didn't he? Yes, he did. Another year and 
 they won't bother this pup much, I guess not." 
 
 Under the careful nursing of Bruce the wounds 
 of the Prince soon healed, but the November snows 
 had whitened the wastes of Rupert Land before he 
 had regained his strength, and the winter was far 
 advanced when his chest could bear the pull and drag 
 of his first collar and harness. 
 
 With June returned the red fur-hunters from the 
 upper Rupert and Nottaway river country to trade at 
 the post. Tepees now dotted the cleared ground, 
 while bark canoes like mushrooms covered the shore; 
 
WHEN THE PRINCE CAI^IE HOME 113 
 
 and the buoys of nets set for the whitefish that came 
 in with the flood-tide, floated in lines on the river's 
 surface. Rupert House had suddenly awakened with 
 life and color. By day the swarthy children of the 
 forest traded their winter's hunt of fur for the sup- 
 plies of the Great Company, or lounged around the 
 trade-house, smoking and exchanging the gossip 
 of the north. At twilight the laughter, of women 
 and the voices of children at play filled the air, for 
 the dread moons of the long snow, with their cold 
 and famine, were passed and the days of plenty at 
 hand. 
 
 One evening two French half-breeds, lean from 
 privation, with clothes and moccasins worn to ribbons, 
 turned a shattered Peterborough canoe into the post. 
 The strangers said that in the previous summer they 
 had crossed the Height-of Land from the Lake St. 
 John country, by way of the Roberval River and the 
 Sinking Lakes, on the Labrador border, where they 
 had trapped their furs. It was the most valuable 
 winter's hunt that two men had brought to the post 
 in the memory of the oldest Indian, and the suspicions 
 of Cristy were aroused. 
 
 Part of their furs the breeds traded for a canoe, 
 provisions, and ammunition, but refused to barter the 
 foxskins. This convinced the factor that they in- 
 tended to return to Lake St. John, where the free 
 traders would pay them cash. 
 
 One morning Rupert House waked to find the 
 strangers gone. That night when Bruce fed the sled- 
 dogs, the Prince was missing. Then he knew that the 
 
114 TOILERS OF THE TRAILS 
 
 husky had been taken from Rupert in the canoe of the 
 half-breeds. 
 
 Quickly the post was aroused. Gathering his best 
 voyageurs in the trade-room, Cristy addressed them 
 in Cree. 
 
 " The last sleep the strangers from the south left 
 Rupert House. With them they took the light of 
 my eyes. And the heart of my son is sad. They 
 journeyed far to trade their furs at the Big Water. 
 This they did because they feared the heavy hands of 
 the fathers at Ottawa, for they have broken the law. 
 To-night a canoe takes the river trail to Mistassini, 
 another follows the coast to Moose, and a third 
 journeys up the Big Water to East Main Fort, to 
 bring back these men and the dog, which I prize. 
 There is much flour and tea for the canoe that brings 
 back the dog, and the Company debt of the crew shall 
 be forgotten." 
 
 The voyageurs launched the canoes, with supplies 
 for the pursuit, and disappeared in the dusk. 
 
 Far into the night the factor and his son sat spec- 
 ulating as to how the thieves had managed to over- 
 power the great puppy and spirit him away without 
 arousing the camp ; while at intervals, outside, where 
 the dogs slept in the grass, the deep throat of the 
 Queen voiced her grief at the absence of her son, in a 
 long, mournful howl. 
 
 Early in August a packet from Moose Factory, 
 with government despatches from Ottawa, told the 
 story. The posts on the east coast were ordered to ar- 
 rest two French half-breeds, accused of the murder. 
 
WHEN THE PRINCE CAME HOME 115 
 
 on the upper Roberval, of a Montagnais, and the 
 wounding of several others, in a successful attempt to 
 rob a party of trappers of their winter's hunt. 
 
 Then the fur brigade arrived from Mistassini, and 
 with it Michel and his tattered voyageurs. They had 
 searched the length of the Rupert and the Marten 
 Lakes trail to the south, but only once had found signs 
 of the dog and the fleeing thieves. The factor at Mis- 
 tassini wrote that he was crippled with rheumatism, 
 and asked for an assistant. 
 
 " WeU, here's where you get your chance to see 
 some of the Height-of-Land country," said his father, 
 handing Bruce the letter. 
 
 Three days later Bruce Cristy bade his family good- 
 bye, and started with the returning fur brigade for the 
 great lake in whose half-mythical waters the white 
 man's paddle had seldom dipped. Stepping into a 
 birch-bark manned by four Crees, he placed his Win- 
 chester in its skin case at his feet, and turned grimly to 
 his father, who stood on the shore. 
 
 " If they are hunting in the Mistassini country this 
 winter and we don't get them, it won't be because I 
 have hugged the fire at the post; and if I'm ever 
 within rifle-shot and don't bum some powder, it won't 
 be because I've forgotten my dog." 
 
 " Good-bye, lad! Take care of yourself! We'll see 
 you in the summer," called his father as the stalwart 
 youth seized his paddle and gave the signal to start. 
 
 The flve blades, driven by the toil-hardened backs 
 and shoulders of the crew, churned the water in the 
 wake of the brigade, and the long craft, followed by 
 
116 TOILERS OF THE TRAILS 
 
 cries of " Bo'-jo'I Bo'-jo'I " from the little group of 
 Crees on the shore, shot forward on its three-hundred- 
 mile journey. 
 
 On arriving at Mistassini in September, Bruce 
 found the factor Craig unable to walk, so he took act- 
 ive charge of the post. While most of the Crees were 
 as yet in their summer camps on the lakes, curing fish 
 for the winter, he sent canoes warning them to keep a 
 sharp lookout for the renegades from Lake St. John, 
 and promised a reward for the dog. But the couriers 
 returned with no news of the Prince. 
 
 In October the stinging winds brought the snow 
 to the lonely post far on the Height-of-Land, and the 
 thoroughfares began to close with the early ice. Then 
 for a month the little settlement was marooned in the 
 snow-swept solitudes, while the ice was making on the 
 wide lakes and swift rivers, strong enough for men 
 and dog-teams to travel. With the coming of the 
 freezing November moon Bruce Cristy left the post 
 with two dog-teams for the S inking Lakes . Christmas 
 found him still in the forests of the Labrador border, 
 travelling from camp to camp of the Cree and Mon- 
 tagnais trappers who traded at Mistassini, searching 
 for news of twb half-breed strangers, and a big husky 
 with star-emblazoned chest. Finally, disheartened 
 after two months' fruitless wandering, he turned back 
 on the Mistassini trail. 
 
 It was a bitter January day on the wind-harried 
 level of the great lake, with the air filled with powdery 
 snow that cut the faces of the men like whip-lashes. 
 Gradually the travelled trail, ice-hardened at Christ- 
 
WHEN THE PRINCE CAME HOME 117 
 
 mas by the friction of many feet and runners, fUled 
 with drift, and the brisk trot of the dogs slowed to a 
 walk as the light waned and the early dusk crept out 
 from the deeply shadowed spruce shores. Jean, the 
 French Cree driver at the gee-pole of the slowly mov- 
 ing sled, was searching the neighboring forest for a 
 place to camp, while behind him walked Cristy, oc- 
 cupied with his thoughts. 
 
 Suddenly the lead-dog yelped, starting the team 
 forward on a trot. Looking up, Bruce saw a dog- 
 team far ahead on the trail. 
 
 " It must be our boys," he said. " Stir up those 
 huskies, Jean. Peter may have some news." 
 
 The driver cracked his whip at the leader's ears, and 
 the pursuit began. From the first they gained 
 rapidly. Soon hardly a mile separated the teams. 
 Then catching a side view where the trail turned at 
 right angles to round a point of the shore, Cristy's 
 heart leaped, for the sled ahead, on which the driver 
 rode, was drawn by a lone husky. 
 
 Bruce gripped the arm of the Cree. " There's only 
 one dog on that sled, Jean! Come on! " Springing 
 in front of the team, he ran up the trail. 
 
 At Cristy's approach the huddled figure on the sled 
 gave no sign. At intervals an arm rose and fell, lash- 
 ing the dog forward to the unequal task. Hardly a 
 rifle-shot separated them when the exhausted dog, 
 after repeated attempts to drag the sled through a 
 drift, lay down on the traU. Again the whip rose and 
 fell, rose and fell, but the husky did not move. 
 Slowly the driver got up from the sled, and reeling 
 
118 TOILERS OF THE TRAILS 
 
 forward struck the dog savagely on the head with the 
 butt of the whip, then, carried off his balance by the 
 blow, fell headlong to the snow at the dog's side. Like 
 a flash the husky turned, and before the man could 
 regain his feet lunged at his throat, forcing him, strug- 
 gling, backward upon the trail. Once, twice, three 
 times the fangs of the maddened brute tore at the 
 throat of the helpless driver. Then, while the infu- 
 riated beast still worried the crumpled figure in the 
 snow, Bruce reached them. 
 
 The gaunt husky, baring his white fangs with a 
 snarl, turned from the lifeless body. Raising his 
 massive head, across which, from nose to ears, ran 
 great welts left by the dog-whip, he glared with nar- 
 row, bloodshot eyes at the new enemy. And on the 
 shaggy chest the frozen ooze from a harness-sore 
 stained with a crimson smear a large white star. 
 
 "Prince! Prince! Don't you know me, boy?" 
 cried his master, dropping his fur mittens, and reach- 
 ing out with palms upward toward the angered dog, 
 whose blood was still hot with the rage of battle. 
 
 The husky, expecting a blow from a dog-whip, and 
 receiving no attack, stood for an instant confused. 
 But the approach of the yelping team again aroused 
 his fighting blood, and he faced around in his traces 
 to defend himself, hair on back bristling. 
 
 " Good old Prince! Don't you remember me, boy? 
 Don't you remember the Queen, the Queen, your old 
 mother, Prince? " 
 
 Gradually, as Bruce repeated the words once so 
 familiar to the wanderer, the bared fangs were cov- 
 
WHEN THE PRINCE CAME HOME 119 
 
 ered. The pointed ears of the husky laid back against 
 the skull, slowly righted themselves as the soothing 
 tones of the voice he once loved stirred the ghosts of 
 vague memories of other days, blurred by months of 
 cruelty and starvation. 
 
 As his lost master continued to talk, the dog thrust 
 forward his bruised muzzle and, with ears pricked, 
 sniffed at Bruce's hand. 
 
 "Good old Prince! We've found him at last!" 
 Bruce continued, his fingers now touching the ex- 
 tended nose of the puzzled dog. Then with a long 
 whiff memory returned, and the husky recognized the 
 beloved hand of his master of the happy days. 
 
 With a yelp, the starved Prince, fore feet uplifted, 
 threw himself at Bruce. A pair of strong arms 
 circled the shaggy neck, and a wind-burnt face sought 
 the scarred head, while into a furry ear, amid whines 
 of delight, were poured the things a man says only to 
 his dog. 
 
 A slash of the knife freed the Prince from the har- 
 ness. Kneeling on his snow-shoes, Cristy ran his 
 fingers over the lumps and bruises on the great ema- 
 ciated body that told the story of long months of 
 slavery under brutal masters. Finding no broken 
 bones, he turned to the dead man in the snow who had 
 paid so dearly for every welt. For a moment, as 
 Bruce gazed at the face, distorted in death, with 
 glazed, sunken eyes staring sightless into the bitter 
 night, pity held him; until the touch of a battered 
 nose seeking his hand again hardened his heart. 
 
 " When their grub gave out," said Bruce, " I sup- 
 
120 TOILERS OF THE TRAILS 
 
 pose he knifed the other one and started for the 
 post." 
 
 They buried the murderer in the deep snow of the 
 shore and left him to the tender mercies of his kind, 
 the furred assassins of the forest. Then they made 
 camp and fed the famished dog. 
 
 When the Prince had regained his strength, back at 
 the post, Bruce decided not to wait until the thorough- 
 fares cleared for canoe travel in May, but to leave for 
 home on the first crust. 
 
 So one March afternoon found the Prince leading 
 the dog-team slowly over the lump ice marking the 
 long stretch of the Kettle Rapids, far down the Ru- 
 pert River. Whirlpools, shoots, and cross-currents, 
 defying the inexorable cold long after the swift river 
 closes elsewhere, keep the Rupert House trail broken 
 here until January. Then, succumbing to the fierce 
 temperature of the midwinter nights, the rapids freeze 
 throughout their length in irregular mounds and 
 ridges. 
 
 For an hour they had been hugging the shore, 
 avoiding the treacherous footing of midstream. At 
 last, on turning a bend, the white shell of the Rupert 
 again stretched level before them. 
 
 With a cheery " Marche, Prince!" Cristy broke 
 into the snow-shoe swing, half-walk, half -trot, which 
 eats up the miles as does no gait on bare groimd. In 
 answer to the command, the willing leader started the 
 team at a fast trot. Out into mid-river, where the 
 going was good on the hard crust, swung Cristy, fol- 
 lowed by his dogs. Then, as they left the foot of the 
 
WHEN THE PRINCE CAME HOME 121 
 
 rapids, without warning the ice sank under them, 
 plunging driver and yelping dogs into the water. 
 
 With a few powerful strokes Cristy fought his way 
 to the sound ice. Behind him, the Prince and the 
 second dog struggled desperately against the drag of 
 the sinking sled, holding the rear dogs under. Sup- 
 porting himself with one arm, Bruce called to the 
 panting husky, straining every nerve to reach his 
 master. " Come on, Prince! Come on. Prince! " he 
 cried, working desperately with numbed fingers to 
 get at his knife. Then the swift current carried sled 
 and helpless huskies down-stream under the strug- 
 gling Prince, momentarily easing the strain on the 
 traces which bound him to them, and he reached and 
 got his fore feet on the ice at his master's side. At the 
 same instant Cristy freed his knife from its sheath. 
 And as sled and drowning dogs were sucked under the 
 ice, and the naUs of the Prince's clinging fore feet 
 slipped slowly toward the edge, while the doomed dog 
 voiced his despair in a smothered whine, the traces 
 were slashed. 
 
 Freed from the deadly weight, with a heave of his 
 shoulders the husky raised himself half out of water, 
 when the body of his master at his side furnished a 
 foothold for a hind leg, and the dog was out. 
 
 Stiffening under the paralyzing chill and hampered 
 by skin capote and snow-shoes, Cristy was weakening 
 rapidly, when the Prince, sensing his master's peril, 
 braced himself at the slippery edge of the firm ice and 
 seized an arm in his strong teeth. Then as he strained 
 for a foothold, with fore legs planted wide apart and 
 
122 TOILERS OF THE TRAILS 
 
 nails biting deep into the treacherous surface, the thick 
 back of the great husky bowed slowly into an arc, and 
 the freezing man was dragged to safety. 
 
 The dazed Cristy got to his feet and staggered to 
 the shore, where he stood for a while staring helplessly 
 at the grave of his faithful huskies. At length he 
 turned to the dog at his side, who held in his half-open 
 jaws his master's unmittened hand, begging with 
 beating tail for recognition. 
 
 Silently the man knelt and, seizing in his arms the 
 shaggy neck, crushed his face against the great head. 
 
 " We're square now, boy. I won't forget and 
 you won't forget," he said hoarsely, as the happy 
 Prince sat motionless. " But we're a hundred miles 
 from home, boy, and not an ounce of grub, or a 
 blanket, and the wind's risin', and it'll go twenty be- 
 low before daylight. It's travel day and night for us 
 if we ever see Rupert again, and there'll be no white- 
 fish and tea and bannocks on the way." 
 
 For answer, a cold nose and a hot red tongue sought 
 the man's face, while the shivering Cristy threw off 
 his ice-caked capote and squeezed the water as best he 
 could from his freezing clothes. 
 
 Then man and dog, side by side, started down the 
 desolate river guarded by the pitiless hills, in the race 
 against cold and starvation. Somewhere below, he 
 knew there was an old Company cache. The bitter 
 wind, drawing up-stream between the ridges, was 
 strengthening. No man might face its stinging drive 
 that night and save his face and hands. Already 
 the blood was leaving his fingers in the frozen 
 
THE FREEZING MAN WAS DRAGGED TO SAFETY 
 
WHEN THE PRINCE CAME HOME 123 
 
 mittens. So he hurried to make the cache before the 
 dusk. 
 
 White mile after mile the man and dog left behind 
 them, but no sign of the cache. Cristy wondered if 
 he had passed it, buried in the snow. It had been 
 there in the fall, not far below the Kettle Rapids, and 
 he must find it soon. He was travelling head down 
 to avoid the sting of the wind, but his fingers might 
 go at any time, and he thought of what that would 
 mean. 
 
 Finally, he decided to plunge into the first timbered 
 hollow and make camp. What a mockery that would 
 be for man and dog — without food! Still, a roaring 
 fire would help. But without an axe? Unless he 
 found down timber, he couldn't hope for much of a 
 fire without an axe, and the night would be bitter. 
 The heart of the half-frozen youth sank. He thought 
 of the family at Rupert that would not Icnow his 
 fate until the spring canoe from Mistassini reached 
 the post with the news that he had left the lake in 
 March. Or possibly the sled with the dogs would be 
 washed ashore and found by the Nemiskau Crees on 
 their way to the spring trade. So he mused as his 
 snow-shoes crunched the brittle crust. 
 
 Then he pulled himself together. Men had 
 travelled in the north farther without food, and in 
 midwinter, too, when the wind was worse, and the 
 nights forty and fifty below. Out of the wind it 
 wouldn't be so bad. A thaw was due any time, and 
 the wind never blows long in March in the north. 
 But they must get into the first thick spruce soon, 
 
124 TOILERS OF THE TRAILS 
 
 or Then, half buried in the snow on the shore, 
 
 he saw the cache. 
 
 " Come on, boy! " he cried, and shortly was shovel- 
 ling an entrance through the low door. Inside, some 
 snow had drifted through chinks in the walls, but the 
 roof was wind-proofed by the crust; and his spirits 
 rose, for there at the end of the shack stood a rusty 
 tent stove. 
 
 When he had gathered birch-bark and dry spruce 
 sticks, his stiffened fingers fumbled for his match-box. 
 With an exclamation of fear he swiftly searched each 
 of his pockets. As he did, the lean face went pale 
 under the weather-tanned skin. Turning to the dog, 
 he cried: 
 
 " The matches went down with the sled, boy! 
 We're done for ! We'll never see Rupert now ! " 
 
 As a last resort, he carefully explored the shack, but 
 it had been unused for years, and he found no 
 matches, but stumbled upon what the wood-mice had 
 left of an old Company blanket. Again he searched 
 the room for that which meant warmth and life, but 
 in vain. 
 
 Then the desperate youth set to work banking in 
 the walls of the cache with snow to make it wind- 
 proof. This accomplished, he sealed the low doorway 
 and prepared to fight through the bitter hours for his 
 life. His woolen clothes, thanks to the severe exer- 
 cise, were partially dry; so were the socks he wore 
 next his feet. The outer ones he took off, kneaded 
 until they were soft, wrung out what moisture he 
 could, and put on again. 
 
WHEN THE PRINCE CAME HOME 125 
 
 Scraping and pounding the ice from the heavy coat 
 of the Prince, who, owing to the thick under-fur of 
 soft hair and the hardihood of his breed, was immune 
 to cold, Cristy made the dog lie down, and wrapping 
 the blanket around them, clasped the great body 
 closely to his own. Through the bitter hours the 
 warmth of the dog's body alone kept the heart of his 
 master beating and the blood moving in his feet and 
 hands. 
 
 At last the blue March dawn broke over the cache 
 on the Rupert, and with it the wind fell. Later the 
 rising sun overtook on the river trail a traveller with 
 a ragged blanket slung on his back, and a slate-gray 
 husky. Once the dog ran ahead, and turning, rushed 
 yelping back to take in his jaws a mittened hand, and 
 march, swishing a bushy tail, beside the man as if urg- 
 ing him to a faster pace. But the traveller, with head 
 down and haggard eyes, swung stiffly on at the same 
 stride, for Rupert House lay ninety white miles away, 
 and one who starves must save his strength. 
 
 Three days later old Michel opened the door of the 
 trade-house at Rupert, stepped into the caribou 
 thongs of his snow-shoes, and shuffled up the high 
 river shore toward his cabin. At last the winter was 
 breaking. The strong March sun, reflected from the 
 sparkling white level of river and bay, fairly blinded 
 the eyes. The tough old breed had not deigned to 
 slip on the rabbit-skin mitts that hung from his neck 
 by a cord, and in the sun his cap of cross-fox with its 
 bushy tail dangling jauntily behind seemed too warm. 
 
126 TOILERS OF THE TRAILS 
 
 Yet lately the nights had been bitter, with much wind. 
 In a week, perhaps, the snow would melt a little each 
 day at noon, to freeze hard again at sunset. Then in 
 a few sleeps would come the big March thaw, and 
 the trails would close for a moon. So he mused as his 
 snow-shoes lazily creaked on the crust. 
 
 Suddenly the tall figure stopped in its tracks, a 
 lean hand shading the keen eyes. 
 
 "Ah-hahl" 
 
 The exclamation was followed by a long silence as 
 he stood, motionless, gazing up the river. 
 
 " Cree comin' ! " he muttered after a time, and 
 shortly added, " De rabbit, he give out in bees coun- 
 tree for sure." 
 
 With narrowed eyes still shaded, the watcher fol- 
 lowed the moving spots on the snow far up the river 
 trail. 
 
 " Ver' strange ting! " he finally said aloud. " He 
 travel all over de riviere lak' he seek wid ' mal de 
 tete.' " The old man slowly shook his head. " De 
 husky, why he jump de trail? Ver' strange ting! " 
 
 Presently the approaching objects on the wide river 
 further enlightened the keen eyes. 
 
 " Ah-hah ! " This time with more vehemence, for 
 the black spots were beginning to assume shape. 
 " Dere ees no sled. De Cree starve out for sure." 
 
 Nearer came the one seeking the succor of Rupert 
 House from the pitiless north. Then the old man ex- 
 pelled his breath with a long " Hah! " The mystery 
 of the uncertain course of the stranger was solved. 
 
 "Snow-blind!" he said, and turned back to the 
 
WHEN THE PRINCE CAME HOME 127 
 
 trade-house, to reappear with the factor and two Com- 
 pany men. 
 
 " A snow-blind Cree, with a lone husky, you say, 
 Michel? " inquired Cristy, his eyes following the 
 pointing finger. 
 
 " Snow-blind, right enough, and starved, poor 
 devil! Tnere he goes off the trail now. Why, the 
 dog's pulling him back; he's leading him. He's 
 hitched to the husky." 
 
 For a moment, in sUence, they watched the uncer- 
 tain progress of man and dog. Then the factor ex- 
 claimed: 
 
 " There, he's gone down ! Michel, harness a team 
 to the cariole ! We'll go and get him." 
 
 Stunned, or too weak to rise, the snow-blind stran- 
 ger lay where he fell, while the dog nosed the pros- 
 trate form. Then the husky threw back his head and 
 roused the dogs of Rupert House with a long howl. 
 
 Cristy and a post half-breed were rapidly ap- 
 proaching when the fallen man, with an effort, got to 
 his feet and, clinging to a trace that circled the dog's 
 neck, again staggered forward. The big husky, ex- 
 cited by the answering howls of the post dogs ap- 
 pearing from all directions, dragged his reeling master 
 up the trail. On came the strange pair, stricken voy- 
 ageur and faithful dog, but as Cristy reached them, 
 the legs of the man doubled under him and he lurched 
 forward on the snow. With a whine the husky turned 
 to the motionless figure. Then he faced the strangers 
 with a warming growl, and the astonished Cristy saw 
 on his broad chest a large white star. 
 
128 TOILERS OF THE TRAILS 
 
 "Prince! By heaven, it's the pup!" cried the 
 amazed factor. 
 
 On guard, over the body of his master, whose face 
 was invisible, the huge husky, narrow eyes blazing, 
 held the two men in their tracks. 
 
 " Don't y' know me. Prince? Good old Prince! " 
 coaxed Cristy, reaching a hand toward the dog, who 
 stood perplexed by the voice of the factor and the 
 familiar white buildings grouped on the shore 
 ahead. 
 
 With a moan, the one in the snow turned and 
 raised himself on an elbow. Across the lean, bearded 
 face a strip of torn shirt was bound, to shield the in- 
 flamed eyes from the sun-glare on the crust. A mit- 
 tenless hand, blue from frost-bite, reached up and 
 touched the dog. Then the wanderer said weakly: 
 
 " I hear the huskies — Prince. We must be home — ■ 
 at last!" 
 
 " Bruce! Bruce! my lad! " cried his father, rush- 
 ing to his stricken son. 
 
 With a bound the dog met the factor half-way, but 
 the great fangs did not strike, for he had recognized 
 his old friend. 
 
 Tenderly the starved and half-delirious youth was 
 placed in the cariole sled and brought to the post. 
 
 Huskies, hurrying from far and near at the chal- 
 lenge from the river, already had been driven away 
 when the Queen appeared. They were climbing the 
 shore trail when she came trotting up to the great dog, 
 who marched beside the cariole sled within reach of 
 his master's hand. The Prince pricked up his ears, 
 
WHEN THE PRINCE CAME HOME 129 
 
 whined uncertainly, and saluted her with a loud bark. 
 iWith a low rumble of resentment in her throat at the 
 presence at Rupert House of a strange husky whose 
 shoulders topped her own by inches, she gingerly ap- 
 proached nearer. For a moment slant eyes looked 
 into slant eyes, as mother and son stood motionless. 
 Then, yelping wildly, the Prince sprang toward her. 
 Surprised, the Queen stood on the defensive, when 
 her bulky puppy carromed into her shoulders, rolling 
 her over and over; but as they met, her nose, like a 
 flash, caught the glad news. Then there followed a 
 medley of yelps, leaps, caresses, and acrobatic expres- 
 sions of unbounded canine delight such as Rupert 
 House had witnessed in the memory of no living man. 
 Bereft of their senses, mother and son raced up the 
 high shores, round the trade-house, over the factor's 
 quarters and return, barking like mad. 
 
 When Bruce Cristy's mother took him into her arms 
 at the factor's door, there happened to the proud 
 Queen, in the presence of the post, that which no 
 husky before had had either the strength or daring to 
 attempt. Running at her side, the joy-maddened 
 Prince, weakened by three days' fast though he was, 
 suddenly seized the Queen by the back of her great 
 neck and, with a wrench, threw her on the snow. And 
 to the amazement of the onlookers, instead of the 
 swift punishment which they anticipated would be 
 meted out to him for his audacity, his cold nose felt 
 the swift lick of a hot tongue as she gained her feet, 
 and again joined him in a mad frolic. 
 
 So did the Queen welcome her lost son. 
 
130 TOILERS OF THE TRAILS 
 
 That night Bruce Cristy lay in bed with snow com- 
 presses cooling the inflamed eyes and aching head. 
 While, at intervals, his mother fed him nourishing 
 broth, he briefly told the story of the finding of the 
 Prince, his fight for life at the Kettle Rapids, and the 
 long struggle home without fire or food. 
 
 Later, as his worn-out son slept, Cristy tiptoed to 
 the door and, slipping into his snow-shoes, sought the 
 shack behind the trade-house. Softly entering on 
 moccasined feet, he smiled at the picture that the light 
 from the low moon shining through the door revealed. 
 For there, lying sprawled upon the sacking in the 
 comer where he came into the world, lay the wan- 
 derer, sleeping deeply after a bountiful supper, while 
 at his side, with her nose resting on the big-boned, 
 hairy fore paws of her son, the Queen kept guard. 
 At times as she slept her deep chest swelled and then 
 contracted as she heaved a contented sigh in her 
 dreams, which were sweet, for at last the Prince had 
 come home. 
 
WITH THE WINTER MAIL' 
 
WITH THE WINTER MAIL 
 
 FoK three days the Fort Hope Christmas mail had 
 fought its way through the bhzzard that beat down 
 from the Kapiskau barrens upon the frozen Albany. 
 For three days old Pierre, breaking trail through the 
 drifting snow to give footing to his panting dog-team, 
 or swinging his goad of plaited caribou hide from be- 
 hind the sled while his nephew, Esau, took the lead, 
 had plunged head down into the gale. Stinging like 
 the lash of myriad whips, the pitiless northwester had 
 seamed the frost-blackened faces of the men with 
 cracks, cutting the noses of the laboring huskies until 
 they whined with pain. At times, when the fury of 
 the snow-swirls which enveloped them in a blur of 
 white had sucked their very breath, the men threw 
 themselves gasping beside the ice-coated dogs whose 
 red lips and tongues, to which clung the frozen froth 
 of their hot mouths, alone marked them as living 
 things. Still, hour after hour, they had hurled them- 
 selves headlong into the storm. And ever as they had 
 conquered each hard-won mile of the frozen river, the 
 parting words of the factor of the Hudson's Bay 
 Company at Fort Albany lived again in the ears of 
 the old half-breed — ^words which had etched them- 
 selves into his memory as he left the post, asleep un- 
 der the stars in the gray dusk of the December morn- 
 ing, to take the long Fort Hope trail. 
 
 133 
 
134 TOILERS OF THE TRAILS 
 
 Whenever, at daylight, the boy had urged that they 
 remain in camp, deep in the shelter of the spruce, until 
 the storm blew itself out, the sting of those last words 
 of the factor had spurred him on as a rowel drives a 
 spent steed. Always his reply had been a hoarse 
 "Marche!" as he struck the lead-dog with an un- 
 wonted fierceness that Esau could not comprehend. 
 But old Pierre had not deigned to voice the thoughts 
 that consumed him, and the boy, Indian-like, did not 
 question. So, forcing the huskies to the limit of their 
 endurance and encouraging the lad, who already 
 showed signs of the physical strain of the battle with 
 wind and snow, the old Cree had pushed on and on. 
 
 " In canoe or on snow-shoes no better man has 
 served the Company. But you're stiffening up and 
 growing too old to take the winter trail to Fort Hope. 
 It's the toughest trail in the north country, and next 
 year a younger man will go, for the mail must get 
 through on time." 
 
 These were the words that for four days had tor- 
 tured the pride of the old Company servant, repeating 
 and repeating themselves through every white mile of 
 the shifting, drift-barred trail. He recalled, too, how 
 the factor had rested his hand kindly on his shoulder 
 and gripped his fingers at parting as if to lighten the 
 blow — the blow that had been the death-knell of his 
 manhood. 
 
 And so at last, he mused, the end had come — ^the 
 end foretold of late years by recurring twinges of 
 " mal raquette," and stiffened back on portage and 
 river. He had hoped that he had concealed it from 
 
WITH THE WINTER MAIL' 135 
 
 the younger men, but now even the factor knew. 
 Fiercely the pride of the French blood of his father 
 and the stoicism of the Cree had fought for mastery 
 within him through the miles of white sUence on the 
 first day out. But in vain he battled with the demons 
 that mocked. The sentence that he knew some day 
 must come to all men had come now to him. So this 
 was his last long trail. At length, age had struck him 
 down as the timber-wolves in winter strike down an 
 old caribou deserted by the herd. A few years of 
 light river work and easy trips with the dogs, and 
 then a seat at the fire with the squaws and old men, 
 remained to him, Pierre Grassette, who, among the 
 swift dog-runners of all the wide North, had met none, 
 half-breed, red man, or white, who could take the trail 
 from him in the days of his youth. 
 
 This which he had dreaded above all things; this 
 ignominy which in the last few years he had prayed 
 he might be spared; this rusting out at a post — ^would 
 be his lot. He had longed to die on the trail, in har- 
 ness. But his dearest wish was to be denied him, this 
 death of a man, which had overtaken so many of his 
 comrades. 
 
 Years before, one still in the flush of early man- 
 hood had drowned with the crew of a Company boat 
 in the great gorge of the Abitibi. Another, strong as 
 a young moose, had been frozen with his dogs on the 
 Nepigon trail; a third, stabbed in a brawl at Henley 
 House; but he, the last of them, would rot with gar- 
 rulous squaws and toothless old men at Fort Albany, 
 a pensioner of the Company. 
 
136 TOILERS OF THE TRAILS 
 
 Time and again, as he urged on young Esau and 
 the dogs, had his thoughts traversed the forty years as 
 man and boy that he had served so faithfully the mas- 
 ters he had never seen, who dwelt far toward the rising 
 sun across the Big Water. Instinctively he had 
 quickened his pace as he remembered how once, on a 
 bet, he had brought the winter mail from Moose to 
 Rupert House, up the east coast, ninety miles as the 
 goose flies, in twenty hours, finishing fresher than his 
 dogs and dancing that night at the Christmas carousal. 
 Not without reason had the Crees of the James Bay 
 country called him " The Man Who Does Not Sleep." 
 Once his fame as a voyageur had travelled from 
 Whale River, in lonely Ungava, down to Norway 
 House, far in the O jib way country. Into the dark 
 eyes of the old Cree there had flashed momentarily the 
 fire of his lost youth, as he tossed his head with pride 
 at the memories of his prowess in days long dead. 
 Then the words of the factor had banished his dream. 
 " Next year a younger man will go, for the mails 
 must get through on time." 
 
 Never had Esau seen such a pace set on snow-shoes 
 as Pierre had made that first clear day out of Albany. 
 Inured to the winter trails though he was, it had taxed 
 his youthful strength to follow the seemingly tireless 
 stride of the old courier. When the night closed in 
 upon them, they had turned the weary huskies to the 
 shore, and with their shoes scooped out a camping- 
 place in the deep snow of the spruce timber, where 
 they pitched their shed-tent as a wind-break and 
 boiled their tea and pemican. As Pierre threw the 
 
WITH THE WINTER MAIL 137 
 
 rations of frozen whitefish to the hungry dogs, he had 
 accosted the tired lad with a strange glitter in his 
 deep-set eyes : 
 
 " Next long snow I t'ink young man not feed de 
 dog at dees place on first sleep from Albanee ! " Then 
 he had added almost fiercely: " What you t'ink? " 
 
 " Nama, no," the lad had quickly answered in Cree, 
 and then asked: "Why you travel so quick? You run 
 lak de Windigo was on your track." But the spirit- 
 broken Pierre had turned away that the boy might not 
 know his grief. 
 
 The next morning, at daybreak, they had crawled 
 out of their robes of rabbit-skin to plunge into the 
 driving northwester which had swept down, over 
 night, from the wild wastes of Keewatin into the 
 valley of the Albany. But the veteran who bore the 
 scars of forty years of battling with the fury of the 
 subarctic winter did not wait in camp for the storm 
 to blow itself out. It was his last trip to Fort Hope 
 and the mail should go through. The next long snow 
 one of the young men might crack his whip over the 
 Christmas mail-team, but he would need the heart and 
 sinews of a king caribou to match the records that 
 Pierre Grassette — known among the Fort Hope 
 Ojibways as " Flying Feet " — had left for the long 
 Albany trail. So, obsessed with but one thought, for 
 three days he had forced the whining and reluctant 
 huskies into the drive of the gale. 
 
 On the afternoon of the third day the storm ceased. 
 Through new drifts and over ice beaten bare by the 
 hammering of the wind, the old Spartan ran like a 
 
138 TOILERS OF THE TRAILS 
 
 white wraith in his snow-crusted capote. In the rear 
 Esau, flicking the ear of a lagging husky with his 
 long whip, or calling to the lead-dog, already dreamed 
 of the good cheer that awaited them three hundred 
 miles away at Fort Hope. In fancy he tasted the 
 boiled salt goose and the juicy caribou steak of their 
 Christmas dinner, and a smile lit his swarthy features 
 as he pictured himself swinging the dusky Ojibway 
 girls at the New Year's revelry. Suddenly the yelp 
 of the lead-dog and the stopping of the sled roused 
 him. Looking up he saw the huskies nosing the pros- 
 trate figure of his companion. 
 
 As Esau bent over him Pierre attempted to rise, but 
 fell back, choking, upon the snow. The terrified boy 
 knelt, turned back the fur-lined hood of the capote 
 and gazed into the bloodshot eyes of his companion, 
 who struggled painfully for breath. Supporting him 
 in his arms, Esau held the old man, whose lean frame 
 shook with a paroxysm of coughing. The attack 
 ceased, but on the quivering lips of the stricken voy- 
 ageur it left a deep crimson stain. Then Esau un- 
 derstood. Tenderly he lifted the limp body, placed 
 it on the sled, and drove to the shore, where in the 
 thick spruce he found a hollow sheltered from the 
 wind. There, clearing a camp-ground with his snow- 
 shoes, he pitched their shed-tent, and close in front, 
 so that the heat would reflect into it, built a fire. 
 Soon revived by hot tea, Pierre whispered wearily: 
 
 " It ees better dees way dan at Albanee." 
 
 " How you feel now? " asked the lad anxiously. 
 
 " Ver' bad," was the faint answer. " My wind — 
 

 1*^- 
 
 "up df.ke." hk said, pointinc with a shaking fixger 
 
WITH THE WINTER MAIL 139 
 
 ees broke." The old man was seized with a repetition 
 of the attack, while his lean hands convulsively 
 clutched his chest. Again the hot tea relieved him, 
 and he continued: 
 
 " I camp here — ^wid de wolf. You go — on — to 
 Hope." As he spoke, from a distant ridge the lonely 
 howl of a timber-wolf broke the silence. The boy 
 started as if the cry were an omen of evil, but Pierre 
 had but one thought. " De mail — she mus' go tru," 
 he whispered painfully. 
 
 The boy did not protest. An Indian never does at 
 orders he does not intend to obey. There had been 
 a rupture of blood-vessels in the lungs, a not uncom- 
 mon occurrence in the North among the red runners 
 of the Company. If it proved to be a bad hemor- 
 rhage, Pierre would die; if not, he would be able later 
 to travel back to Albany on the sled. There was 
 nothing to do but wait. So he fed the dogs and made 
 soup of the pemican for the sick man. 
 
 In the morning Pierre was better. Stimulated by 
 the hot tea and soup, he asked the boy to prop him 
 up in his blankets, where he could trace a map of the 
 Albany trail on the snow. 
 
 " Up dere," he said, pointing with a lean, shaking 
 finger at his tracings, " de Ghost Riviere meet de 
 Albanee. One sleep up de Ghost you fin' petit lac. 
 On dees lac de Cree hunt fur. Go an' bring two man. 
 De mail she go tru for sure." 
 
 An attack of coughing checked him; in a moment 
 he continued: " De old man at Albanee, he feel ver' 
 bad de mail she not go tru." 
 
140 TOILERS OF THE TRAILS 
 
 Exhausted by the effort, Pierre lay back in his 
 blankets. 
 
 " How you keep de fire? " objected the boy. " You 
 seek. You freeze wid no fire w'en I go, and den de 
 wolf he get you." 
 
 But the sick man was not to be denied. So Esau 
 cut a great pile of birch logs each of which would 
 burn for hours, and heaped them in front of the tent, 
 that they might be pushed easily on the fire. Har- 
 nessing the dogs, he lashed his blankets and provisions 
 to the sled and, gripping the old man's hand, said: 
 "I not lak to leave you alone seek. But I bring de 
 Cree back by next sun, or I sleep in de muskeg wid 
 de wolf." 
 
 The lad hastened to the waiting dogs, waved his 
 whip at the prostrate figure muffled in rabbit-skins by 
 the fire, and shouted: 
 
 "Bo'-jo'! Bo'-jo'! Pierre! I come back before 
 two sleeps wid de Cree." But as he swung down to 
 the river trail behind the dog-team, the boy shook his 
 head sadly, for in his heart he felt that he had said 
 good-bye to Pierre Grassette forever. 
 
 All that day the doomed man lay by the fire with 
 his grief. After forty years of faithful, unquestion- 
 ing service, he had failed the great Company. The 
 factor was right; he was too old for the long trails. 
 His place was with the squaws. But the one thought 
 that never left him, which kept him company through 
 the long hours as he lay alone among the silent, snow- 
 enveloped spruces under the bitter sky, was that the 
 mail should go through by Christmas day. There was 
 
WITH THE WINTER MAIL 141 
 
 yet time if Esau should find the Crees who wintered 
 on the head waters of the Ghost. To his own condi- 
 tion the old Stoic gave little thought. He had seen 
 men travel on snow-shoes before until blood-vessels in 
 the overtaxed lungs were ruptured. He might get 
 well — there was not so much pain and he coughed 
 less — or he might die there on the shores of the Al- 
 bany, and in April, when the snow melted, the ravens 
 would finish what the wolves and foxes had left of 
 Pierre Grassette, voyageur of the great Company. 
 Well, a man must die sometime, he mused^ and how 
 better than on the trail, as he had lived? 
 
 Before Esau left, Pierre had wrung from the boy 
 the promise that, if he returned with the Crees to find 
 him dead, he would bury him in the snow on the shore, 
 and push on to Fort Hope with the mails. This was 
 his one consolation. 
 
 Again, as the early dusk descended upon the valley 
 of the great river and the first cold stars glittered 
 above the camp in the spruce, the mournful cry of 
 the gray wolf waked the solitude. But the figure 
 prostrate by the fire gave no sign. Later, when the 
 crescent moon dipped behind the far Keewatin hills, 
 dark shapes glided stealthily to and fro in the shadows 
 of the timber, while from out the gloom near the silent 
 camp here and there twin balls of fire gleamed, to dis- 
 appear and then to gleam again, until a shift in the 
 wind or the crackling of the burning logs left the 
 blackness of the enfolding forest unbroken. But the 
 fear that kept the long watches beneath the frozen 
 stars with Pierre Grassette was not a fear of the 
 
142 TOILERS OF THE TRAILS 
 
 skulking cowards that patrolled the dusk-filled places 
 of the night. 
 
 On the following day there floated through the twi- 
 light to the eager ears of the sick man the faint tinkle 
 of bells. Painfully he raised himself, where he lay,, 
 to a sitting position to hear more distinctly. Again 
 on the biting air drifted the welcome sound. 
 
 "De Cree!" he exclaimed. "Esau fin' de Cree! 
 De mail go tru for sure ! " 
 
 Nearer came the bells; now they were turning in 
 from the river. He tried to shout the salutation of 
 the Crees, Quey ! Quey ! but his voice broke in a hoarse 
 whisper. He wondered why they were so silent. It 
 was not that way that men came into camp. Then the 
 tired dogs appeared, followed by a lone figure. It 
 was Esau. 
 
 "De Cree? de Cree?" whimpered the sick man 
 piteously, as the boy with bowed head stood before 
 him in silence. But Pierre knew well that the mis- 
 sion had been in vain. 
 
 " I follow de petit riviere till de husky can travel, 
 no more," said the boy. " Dere is no lac. I follow 
 it clear into de muskeg." 
 
 The old man groaned in desperation. 
 
 " By Gar! Have I not camp on dat lac? It ees 
 dere, it ees dere, one sleep toward de risin' sim from 
 de Albanee. You have turn to de nor' up de petit 
 creek. Dat is w'ere you lose de trail, for de Ghost 
 cum tru by de islan'." 
 
 " I not see islan' for deep snow on de ice," pro- 
 tested the heart-broken lad. " De snow is dreft ver' 
 
WITH THE WINTER MAIL 143 
 
 high. But I shoot two deer, and de stew will mak' 
 you strong. How you feel now? " 
 
 " Wen you have sleep, you go back for de Cree," 
 commanded Pierre, ignoring the question. 
 
 That night Esau and the huskies feasted on caribou 
 steak, and the strong broth strengthened the old man, 
 who had eaten little since the boy left him. 
 
 At daybreak Esau, after cutting a huge pile of fire- 
 wood, again set out for the camps of the Crees. Then 
 followed days and nights of hope and fear for the one 
 who waited. Throughout the evening of the second 
 day Pierre lay with ears straining to catch the tinkle 
 of bells or the voices of the drivers. Once a faint, far 
 call from the direction of the mouth of the Ghost 
 brought him with bounding pulses to his elbows, only 
 to fall back in his blankets when his trained ears recog- 
 nized the hunting-cry of the snowy owl. Another 
 day dragged by, and, with the coming of the dusk, 
 crept the shadow of despair into the heart of the old 
 man, for he knew that if Esau had found the Cree 
 camps he would have returned on the second night. 
 Either the lad had met with an accident or the In- 
 dians were not wintering on the head waters of the 
 Ghost. They had camped there the winter before, 
 but this was the year of the rabbit plague and they 
 might have gone to another country, for lynxes and 
 foxes range far at such a time. But if Esau had 
 lost his way or had fallen and broken a leg? Even in 
 such a case there was a chance that the boy might get 
 back on the sled. The dogs were not wild huskies; 
 he, Pierre, had trained them; and yet — ^who knew? 
 
144 TOILERS OF THE TRAILS 
 
 He recalled the winter, years ago, when the boy's 
 father had perished with his dog-team in the Elkwan 
 country in just such a storm as they had met on the 
 Albany. In fevered fancy he beheld the dusky face, 
 furrowed with lines of sorrow, and the reproachful 
 eyes, of the lad's widowed mother back at the post. 
 He had promised her to take care of the boy, and now 
 he had sent him to a lingering death by freezing or 
 starvation, in the barrens. 
 
 " It ees better," he sighed, " dat Pierre Grassette 
 return not to Albanee." 
 
 The sun lifted above the low Ontario hills on the 
 morning of the fourth day of Esau's absence to glisten 
 on white-shrouded spruce and balsam surrounding 
 a shed-tent, half buried in the deep snow, in which 
 lay a sick man waiting for the death from freezing 
 which the night would bring. The wood which Esau 
 had cut would last but the day, and Pierre had not 
 the strength to swing an axe, or to gather more. 
 Once he managed to drag himself to the nearest trees 
 and lop off a few branches, but he paid for the ex- 
 ertion with a protracted fit of coughing which so weak- 
 ened him that he lay motionless for hours. As the 
 night neared, he pushed the last logs on the fire and 
 boiled his tea and pemican; then, whispering a short 
 prayer to the Master whom the Oblat Fathers at 
 Albany had taught him to reverence, he rolled himself 
 in his blankets, and lay down by the fire to await the 
 coming of the white death — the most merciful of the 
 many that haunt the tepees of the children of the 
 snows. 
 
WITH THE WINTER MAIL 145 
 
 Swiftly the advancing gloom cloaked the camp in 
 the spruce. Soon the freezing sky was ablaze with 
 myriad stars. At intervals the icy shell of the great 
 river boomed like a camion-shot as it split under the 
 contraction of the increasing cold. To the north, over 
 the brooding bay, the first glow of the aurora pulsed 
 and waned, then the ribboned lights, loosed from the 
 horizon, writhed and coiled like snakes across the 
 heavens. But the muffled figure in the tent by the 
 dying fire lay motionless. For him the whiter trails 
 were ended. No more the river roads of summer 
 would beckon his canoe. 
 
 Suddenly out of the hush there broke a faint, far 
 call. The man by the dying fire stirred as though in 
 a dream and again lay motionless. Once more 
 through the soundless spaces of the night drifted the 
 cry. The sleeper moaned as if in pain. Then clear 
 upon the bitter air rang men's voices. Quickly the 
 form was alert with life. Trembling with excitement, 
 the half-frozen man cast off his blankets and rose 
 stiffly to his feet. 
 
 " Esau fin' de Cree! " he cried. " De mail go tru! 
 De mail go tru for sure ! " 
 
 In his joy at the sound of the voices of the ap- 
 proaching men, he started to meet them, but, as the 
 first jingling dog-team appeared, led by Esau and a 
 Cree, the trembling legs of the sick man gave way be- 
 neath him, and with a feeble " Quey ! Quey ! " of wel- 
 come he sank to the snow at their feet. 
 
 Sinewy arms carried the limp form to the smoulder- 
 ing fire, where vigorous rubbing gradually restored 
 
146 TOILERS OF THE TRAILS 
 
 the circulation to the stiffened limbs. Then through 
 the sleeping forest sang the axes of the Crees, biting 
 deep into two huge birches, and soon where, but a 
 short space before, a man lay freezing by a dying fire, 
 kettles of tea and caribou haunch bubbled and steamed 
 in the roaring flames that licked the great logs. By 
 such slight tenure are held the lives of the dwellers 
 in the North. 
 
 When they had eaten, Esau told his story to Pierre, 
 who lay swathed in blankets by the fire. 
 
 " Wen I leave you," said the lad, cutting with his 
 hunting-knife a pipeful of Company niggerhead and 
 lighting it with an ember, " I keep dees tam to de beeg 
 riviere at de islan' and sleep at de Cree camp on de 
 petit lac. But I fin' de chil' and squaws alone. De 
 men hunt deer in de muskeg country. Two boy I 
 send to fin' dem and say I wait one sleep and den go 
 back to de Albanee. But de squaw tell me de men 
 not go if I do not wait. Widout dem I not lak to 
 cum, and I have fear to wait wid you seek at de Al- 
 banee. I have hard job what to do, eh, Pierre? " 
 
 " You did well to wait," whispered the sick man. 
 
 " Yes," continued the boy; " two sleep I wait for 
 dem. De nex' sun I hitch de dog to take de back 
 trail, w'en de Cree cum in wid sled heavy wid meat. 
 But dey not leave camp imtil I promeese de Com- 
 panee fill dere tepee wid tea and flour so de squaw 
 and chir grow fat and laugh tru de long snow. For 
 dees dey come." 
 
 " E-nh, yes! " broke in the older Cree in his native 
 tongue; " for this flour and tea we go with you to that 
 
WITH THE WINTER MAIL 147 
 
 fort above the great white-waters toward the setting 
 sun." 
 
 " It was good t'ing we camp here dees sleep, Pierre, 
 for you freeze soon widout fire," added Esau. 
 
 " Yes, it was good for sure," sighed the sick man, 
 " for now de mail she go tru." 
 
 Already he had forgotten the doubt and agony of 
 the last two days while he awaited Esau's return. 
 
 " Next sun we start for Hope," he said, as the men 
 freshened the fire with great logs, and lay down in 
 their robes on the bed of spruce boughs between the 
 windbreak and the heat. 
 
 On the following day the rising sun overtook two 
 dog-teams hurrying westward on the Fort Hope trail. 
 Miles behind them still smouldered the camp-fire in 
 the spruce. Ahead of the teams swung a tall Cree, 
 breaking trail, while at the gee-pole of each sled a 
 caribou-skin-clad driver with long dog-whip urged on 
 the huskies. But lashed to the second sled lay the 
 blanketed form of one whose voyaging days over 
 white winter trails and wind- whipped lakes of summer 
 were forever ended. 
 
 On up the great ice-bound river hurried the belated 
 winter mail. Travelling from starlight to starlight — 
 for the December days were passing — men and dogs, 
 half-breed, Cree, and husky, held to a heart-breaking 
 pace, that the rising sun of Christmas day might find 
 them at the journey's end. 
 
 Day after day they knew no respite from the toil of 
 trace and trail. Now, with snow-shoes for shovels, 
 breaking through great drifts left by the heels of the 
 
148 TOILERS OF THE TRAILS 
 
 blizzard, now speeding over wind-packed snow or 
 glare ice, they travelled into the sunset. And each 
 day when the shadows of the northern night crept out 
 over the white river from the timbered shores and the 
 killing pace began to lag, the weak voice of the be- 
 numbed sick man on the sled would urge them on into 
 the twilight. The Crees' protests that their dogs 
 were raw with harness-sores and that they themselves 
 needed rest were of no avail with one in whose ears 
 still echoed the words of the factor at Albany. So 
 leg-weary men and dogs slaved on under the stars. 
 But at last, in camp, the torture of " mal raquette " 
 in the stiffened legs of Esau and the Crees ceased, 
 when the drugged sleep of exhaustion claimed them, 
 while Pierre of the broken heart lay with his grief far 
 into the silent night. 
 
 Through the desolate cliff country, where the river 
 winds like a huge reptile between towering, timberless 
 shores behind which the sun sets almost at noon; on 
 past the thousand islands where, in summer, the trout 
 and dore lie below a hundred silver cascades ; up the 
 great lake that the Ojibways call " The Charmed 
 Water," where the river sturgeon breed; over three 
 hundred miles of subarctic winter trail they toiled, 
 that the factor at Hope might open his mail from 
 Scotland on Christmas day, and a half-breed keep his 
 word. 
 
 At last, on Christmas eve, as the cold moon lifted 
 above the silhouetted spruce fringing the hills to the 
 east of the Lake of the Elbow and flooded the white 
 wilderness with light, two trail-worn dog-teams turned 
 
WITH THE WINTER MAIL 149 
 
 into the shore. Soon the blows of axes on frozen 
 birch echoed from the adjacent cliffs and the Fort 
 Hope winter packet from Albany made camp twenty- 
 miles from its goal. 
 
 When, two days before, they had left the path of 
 the blizzard and found the trail beyond free from 
 drifts, Pierre, at last, knew that they would win. 
 And, with the knowledge that they had conquered in 
 their long battle with the snow and cold, new strength 
 crept into his limbs and joy transformed the daunt- 
 less warrior of the wilderness trails. 
 
 As Esau helped him from the sled at their last camp 
 tears blinded the deep-set eyes in the lean, wind- 
 blackened face. With an exclamation of delight the 
 old man pushed back the hood of the lad's capote and 
 kissed him on both cheeks. 
 
 " De mail, she go tru for sure. De old man at 
 Albanee know de mail ees safe wid de familee Gras- 
 sette ! " he cried, his arms around his nephew's neck. 
 
 Then he turned and gripped the hands of the smil- 
 ing red men who had given so loyally of their best that 
 his honor might remain untarnished. 
 
 " De Companee will not forget," he said as he 
 thanked them. 
 
 Long before daylight of Christmas morning the 
 eager Pierre roused the sleeping dogs and men. The 
 harnesses were made gay with colored worsted and 
 new bell-straps adjusted, that they might jingle 
 bravely into the post as befitted the dignity of the 
 Company's Christmas mail-team. In honor of the 
 event Esau adorned himself with a pair of blue-cloth 
 
150 TOILERS OF THE TRAILS 
 
 leggings, gaudy with red-and-yellow embroidery, and 
 wound his slim waist with a many-colored Company 
 sash. 
 
 With difficulty they prevailed upon Pierre to re- 
 sume his place on the sled. Thrilled with his victory, 
 the false strength of excitement speeded the blood in 
 his veins. But twenty miles away lay Fort Hope. 
 He begged for his snow-shoes that the people there 
 should not know his shame. Even the lean, harness- 
 raw huskies — shadows of the great dogs that had left 
 Albany and the Ghost — felt the excitement of the 
 drivers and leaped whining into their collars at the 
 signal for the start. 
 
 Up the lake trail, packed hard by the teams of 
 Ojibways bound to the post for the Christmas revelry, 
 hurried Esau, followed by the Crees. To the help- 
 less sick man, lashed to the sled like a bag of pem- 
 ican, never had winter morning seemed so beautiful. 
 The Great Father to whom he had prayed through 
 the dark days behind them had turned, indeed, a 
 listening ear. Crippled and a derelict though he was, 
 forever doomed to sit and dream of days that were 
 done, he yet had been allowed to keep faith with the 
 great Company. He had brought the mail through 
 by the day appointed and it was well. Those un- 
 known masters who lived beyond the Big Water 
 would be pleased that Pierre Grassette had not failed 
 them in his old age — Pierre Grassette, who had served 
 them so gallantly in the days of his masterful youth. 
 
 But the mind of young Esau, running behind the 
 sled, was busied with the anticipation of the hot bread 
 
WITH THE WINTER MAIL 151 
 
 and steaming goose of the Christmas dinner, and the 
 unbroken slumber that awaited him in the sleep-house 
 at the post. There would be a merry week of feast- 
 ing and dancing. Every Ojibway family within 
 reach of Fort Hope would come in. Already the boy 
 had forgotten the privations and sufferings of the 
 Albany traU. He had won his spurs in the fiercest 
 blizzard of a generation, over what was known among 
 the old French coureurs as " la longue traverse," the 
 bitterest winter trail from Labrador to the Barren 
 Grounds. He straightened his shoulders with pride, 
 but the instincts of the boy in him soon turned his 
 thoughts to the Christmas dinner and the dusky Ojib- 
 way belles at the post. 
 
 On they travelled through the morning hours until 
 they neared the point of spruce which conceals Fort 
 Hope from the east. There Pierre called a halt. 
 
 " It ees not good dat Pierre Grassette ride lak a 
 dead moose into Fort Hope. He will run in lak a 
 man, on de raquette," he said. 
 
 In vain Esau objected. PieiTC was too weak. He 
 would bring on another hemorrhage by the exertion. 
 It was madness. But the sick man would not be 
 denied. It was his only wish, that he might bring 
 the mail in for the last time as befitted a man and a 
 dog-runner of the Company. 
 
 The buildings of the settlement lay but a few hun- 
 dred yards beyond the point ahead. Perhaps, 
 thought Esau, it would be as well to allow Pierre his 
 own way. He might walk that far, and the boy knew 
 well how deep would be the veteran's shame to be 
 
152 TOILERS OF THE TRAILS 
 
 carried helpless into Fort Hope on a sled. So they 
 gave him his snow-shoes. 
 
 Supported by Esau's arm, Pierre shuffled slowly 
 up the trail ahead of the impatient dogs which the 
 Crees with difficulty kept from running their master 
 down. Painfully he moved his stiff legs, uncertain 
 from long disuse. Under the exertion and excitement 
 his breath came in hoarse gasps. But as they neared 
 the headland the trained muscles began to answer the 
 iron will that drove them, and he flung off the friendly 
 arm of Esau. 
 
 They rounded the point and a chorus of howls from 
 the post huskies announced their coming. The Crees 
 flung themselves upon the yelping dogs of the teams, 
 who strained at their collars to bolt up the trail. At 
 the sound of the tumult, from the trade-store, sleep- 
 house, and tepees of the post rushed white men and 
 Ojibways to greet the overdue Albany mail. Cheers 
 of welcome mingled with the howls of the huskies. 
 At last the Christmas mail — ^given up as lost in the 
 blizzard — was in from the Big Water. Men, women, 
 and dogs rushed to the shore to greet those already 
 mourned as victims of the long trail. To the eager 
 ears of the excited Esau and Pierre floated the Ojib- 
 way welcome: " Bo'-jo'! Bo'-jo! " 
 
 Pierre waved his hand, as Esau shouted in answer, 
 "Quey! Quey!" the salutation of the Crees. The 
 heart of the old man pounded in his breast, while the 
 old fire inflamed his blood. The huskies, despite the 
 blows of the Cree drivers, sprang forward upon the 
 heels of the now delirious half-breed. Carried away 
 
WITH THE WINTER MAIL 153 
 
 with the moment, he pushed the boy aside and, waving 
 his hand at McKenzie the factor, whose stalwart 
 figure he recognized in the crowd on the shore, broke 
 into the old swing ahead of the dogs, as he had run 
 into Fort Hope for thirty years. 
 
 The fear-stricken Esau begged the madman to re- 
 member his condition, but he could have checked a 
 Keewatin northwester as readily as the fevered Pierre 
 Grassette, who labored on, with his bloodshot eyes 
 fixed on the factor, every breath torturing his lungs. 
 Once, as his strength for a moment ebbed, he faltered; 
 then, straightening up, he continued. Close behind a 
 Cree clung to the leader of the mail-team, holding the 
 yelping huskies by sheer strength. As they ap- 
 proached, the people of the post crowded down to the 
 river trail. Only too well they sensed the meaning 
 of the pace of the old voyaguer. Often before strong 
 men had been loosed from the death-grip of the sullen 
 winter trails, to creep into Fort Hope spent and 
 broken. 
 
 When but a few strides separated him from the 
 outstretched hand of the advancing factor, Pierre 
 suddenly reeled in his tracks. Collecting himself, he 
 again lurched forward, but before Esau could reach 
 him, fell headlong to the trail, 
 
 Esau and the factor knelt beside the crumpled 
 figure, shaken by a convulsion of coughing. Tenderly 
 they raised the head of the choking man from the 
 crimsoned snow beneath. A lean hand clutched that 
 of the factor as Esau wiped the blood from the quiver- 
 ing lips. Presently the eyes of the stricken voyageur 
 
154 TOILERS OF THE TRAILS 
 
 sought McKenzie's with a look of appeal. The factor 
 bent his head close to the ashen face distorted with 
 suffering. Once, twice, the moving lips tried to con- 
 vey what the old man struggled to articulate, when 
 an attack of coughing checked him. Then he grew 
 stronger and, raising himself, whispered: 
 
 " Tell — old man at Albanee — Pierre bring — ^mail — 
 
 tru !" and, with a deep sigh, sank into Esau's 
 
 arms. 
 
 The shaggy leader of his mail-team threw back his 
 great head with a long, mournful howl. And the 
 dauntless spirit of Pierre Grassette, faithful servant 
 of the great Company, even unto death, sped far on 
 the mystic traU to the Valley of Rest. 
 
THE VALLEY OF THE WINDIGO 
 
THE VALLEY OF THE WINDIGO 
 
 Francois Hertel, outlaw, grounded his canoe on 
 the sand beach at Ptarmigan Lake House, leaped into 
 the water, and swung the woman in the bow to the 
 shore. Leaving her to hold off with a whip the threat- 
 ening post huskies from his own two dogs snarling 
 defiance from the canoe, he went up to the trade-house. 
 Entering the whitewashed log store, the tall French- 
 man found Campbell, the factor, alone. 
 
 " Bon jour! " said Hertel, shaking hands. 
 
 " Good day ! " coldly returned the Scotchman, eye- 
 ing the stranger with frankly curious gaze, for French 
 trappers were rare so far north as the Ptarmigan Lake 
 country. When Hertel offered Canadian paper 
 money in payment for tea, sugar, and flour, the 
 factor's interest was further aroused. 
 
 " You've come far," suggested Campbell, finger- 
 ing the bill Hertel handed him. 
 
 " Yes, we travel sence June." 
 
 " Where are you headin'? " 
 
 " I t'ink I traverse dees countree for trappin'- 
 groun'." 
 
 " Oh! " The thick eyebrows of Campbell rose. 
 
 " Ever travel this country before? " 
 
 " No, I alway' hunt de Height-of-Land countree. 
 
 Saint M'rees water." 
 
 157 
 
158 TOILERS OF THE TRAILS 
 
 " What brought you so far north, then? " the factor 
 quickly demanded, believing that he knew why this 
 stranger had journeyed to the James Bay watershed, 
 for in his desk lay a letter six months old warning the 
 northern posts to keep a lookout for one Francois 
 Hertel, wanted for murder at Coocoocache, on the 
 Saint Maurice. 
 
 Fran9ois Hertel shrugged his wide shoulders, look- 
 ing Campbell fair in the eyes. 
 
 " I keel a man las' year at Coocoocache," he said 
 quietly. 
 
 " You are Fran9ois Hertel? " asked the factor, 
 amazed at the admission. 
 
 " Yes, I keel de man who burn de cabane and tak' 
 ma wife. Dey himt me tru de long snow from de 
 Saint M'rees to Grand Lac, but dey not tak' Francois 
 Hertel. Dees spring I fin' her. She ees out dere 
 wid de canoe," 
 
 Hertel pointed through the door to the shore, then 
 tuiTied fiercely upon the factor. 
 
 " De man I keel cum lak' de wolf in de night to 
 tak' ma wife. Wat would you do? " 
 
 The frankness of the voyageur carried with it the 
 aroma of truth. The factor knew men in the rough, 
 and this one shaped up square; or else he was 
 playing a game too subtle for the Scotchman's un- 
 derstanding. Still, the orders from Ottawa received 
 in the Christmas mail were not to be lightly 
 ignored. 
 
 " Hertel, if what you say is so, I don't blame you 
 for getting your man and taking to the bush. But if 
 
VALLEY OF THE WINDIGO 159 
 
 it leaks out to Ottawa that you are trading here, I'm 
 in a pretty mess." 
 
 "At Ottawa I am dead man," and Hertel handed 
 the factor a soiled envelope. Campbell took from the 
 envelope two folded sheets of paper. On the first 
 was written: 
 
 " On Mai'ch last it was reported to the authorities 
 at Ottawa that the body of Fran9ois Hertel had been 
 fomid frozen on the Abitibi Trail, by Harricanaw 
 Crees. Pierre, the trapper, who was at Flying Post, 
 on Grand Lac, in January, must trap his fur in the 
 James Bay country for a year or two. 
 
 "A Friend of Pierre/" 
 
 Campbell was plainly mystified. Then he opened 
 the other note. It was dated at Coocoocache on a 
 letter-head of the Hudson's Bay Company, and ran 
 as follows: 
 
 " To any Company man — 
 
 " The bearer, Fran9ois Hertel, has long been a 
 faithful employee of the Company on the Saint 
 Maurice. One night, a year ago, in June, his house 
 on the island at Coocoocache was burned down. At 
 the same time Walker, a railroad contractor with a 
 bad record, was seen paddling from the island to the 
 construction camp. Faihng to find the body of 
 Hertel's wife in the ruins, we believed her thrown 
 into the river to cover the crime. Hertel returned 
 and obtaining proof of Walker's guilt, killed him and 
 took to the bush. Last winter Hertel met two of the 
 Government Police, who were on his trail, starving 
 in a blizzard on Grand Lac, and at the risk of arrest 
 
160 TOILERS OF THE TRAILS 
 
 brought them in to Flying Post. Out of gratitude, 
 they reported at Ottawa that he had been found frozen 
 on the Abitibi Trail, and wrote to Hertel at Cooeoo- 
 cache to that effect. Returning this spring to Coo- 
 coocache, Hertel found his wife, who had escaped 
 from Walker in a canoe and been picked up by Ver- 
 milion River Crees. He leaves here for the north 
 until the matter blows over, and carries an order on 
 Company posts issued to Pierre Chapleau, to amount 
 of $300.00. Please honor this order, against Coo- 
 coocache, and give him any help you can, as he is the 
 best canoeman and hunter on the Saint Maurice. 
 We think a good deal of him and believe him justified 
 in what he did. 
 
 "Andrew Scott, H. B. C. Coocoocache. 
 
 " J. McCreaby, H. B. C. Lost Lake" 
 
 " Well, if Jock McCready says you're all right, 
 Hertel, it's good enough for me," said Campbell, re- 
 turning the envelope. " I've put in some good years 
 with old Jock at Fort Chimo and the Fading Waters. 
 But you'll have to pass as Pierre Chapleau at the post 
 here, and keep away^ when the Crees are in for the 
 trade. It won't do to have it leak out to Rupert 
 House that you're here." 
 
 " T'anks, Meester Cameel, I understan'," and the 
 Frenchman gripped the factor's hand. 
 
 " Now, you'll have to hurry to cruise out good 
 trappin'-grounds and net whitefish for your dogs." 
 
 " De free fur-countree ees far from here? " 
 
 " The best of it is; some of my Crees trap clear over 
 on Nottaway waters. You'll have to move lively to 
 get your shack built before the freeze-up. And mind 
 
VALLEY OF THE WINDIGO 161 
 
 you keep off trapped grounds. The Crees will wipe 
 you out if you don't." 
 
 Hertel smiled good-naturedly at the warning. He 
 knew only too well the law of the fur-country that 
 there shall be no trespass in another's valleys. 
 
 " Oh, by the way ! " continued Campbell, " if you're 
 not afraid of Windigo, Injun-devils, and such non- 
 sense, there's a country over west that old Joe, my 
 head man, can tell you about. You won't be run- 
 ning into any of the Crees over there; they won't go 
 near it ; they say it's full of evil spirits," 
 
 Hertel's keen face lighted with interest. 
 
 " Were ees dees countree? " 
 
 " It lies four or five days' travel straight west, on 
 Harricanaw waters. The Cree name for this branch 
 is Devil's River. I'll call Tom; he started to trap 
 it once, but was almost scared to death and quit." 
 
 Presently a wrinkled Cree, aged in the Company's 
 service, was smoking a pipe with Hertel and the 
 factor. 
 
 " You know the trail to the valley of the Windigo, 
 Tom?" 
 
 The Indian looked suspiciously at the two men, 
 then nodded gravely. 
 
 " Good huntin' -ground? No Injun trap that 
 valley? " 
 
 The Cree shook his head. " No Injun hunt dere 
 for long tam; too much devil. Plentee game dere, 
 I t'ink." 
 
 " How far is it from here? " 
 
 " Four, five sleep." 
 
162 TOILERS OF THE TRAILS 
 
 " You make a map of the trail to the Windigo 
 valley on this paper. Pierre is going to trap it this 
 winter." 
 
 The Cree's small eyes widened in wonder at the 
 daring of the stranger who would winter in the dread 
 land of evil spirits, shunned by the Ptarmigan Lake 
 Indians for years as they would shun the pestilence. 
 He turned to Hertel in protest. 
 
 " De Windigo, he live in dis valley; he rob trap; 
 kiU you; eat you' squaw. It is ver' bad place." 
 Closing his eyes, the Cree shook his head and shoul- 
 ders as if to blot out the evU memory of the valley of 
 the Windigo. 
 
 " Never mind, Tom, Pierre takes the risk. He's a 
 medicine-man in his country and has a charm for the 
 devils. You show him how to get into the valley 
 with this pencil and paper." 
 
 So, much against his will, old Tom proceeded to 
 trace a crude map of the waterways through which 
 ran the trail to the haunted valley of the Crees. 
 
 Hertel wished to lose himself — ^to disappear from 
 the ken even of the fur-posts. Campbell he could 
 trust, but to the Crees, trading at the post, must be 
 given a wide berth. How better, he thought, than to 
 build his shack and run his trap-lines in the forbidden 
 country, the land no Indian would enter? As for the 
 Windigo and devils, he had a charm for the worst of 
 them in the bark of his 30-30. That the evil spirits 
 of the Crees travelled on four padded feet, and their 
 pelts would bring good prices over Campbell's counter 
 at Ptarmigan Lake he had little doubt. Hertel had 
 
VALLEY OF THE WINDIGO 163 
 
 spent his life in the Indian country and knew the Cree 
 make-up — his superstition and childlike belief in the 
 supernatural. The hardy Frenchman had smiled as 
 the old Cree gravely pictured the fate that awaited 
 him and his Marie in the far-off valley. He had more 
 than once heard a lynx or a wolverine, called Injun- 
 devil, fill the forest with demoniacal caterwauling 
 that would have frozen the blood of a superstitious 
 Indian, and later, when he found the vocalist in his 
 trap, had terminated the nocturnal voice-culture by 
 knocking the brute on the head with a club. For 
 him the land of evil spirits held no terror. 
 
 The next day Hertel shoved his heavily loaded 
 canoe from the beach at Ptarmigan Lake House, 
 called a last bonjour to the factor, and with Marie 
 handling the bow paddle, headed west. Day after 
 day the voyageurs, following the Cree's map, toiled 
 by river and lake and portage toward the Harricanaw 
 headwaters, until at last their canoe floated on the 
 Devil's River of the Crees. Then Hertel poled up 
 the swift stream to its headwater lakes, where they 
 were to net the whitefish needed for winter food for 
 the dogs. 
 
 As they pushed up-stream between timbered hills 
 that rolled away to the blue horizon, the woman in 
 the bow exclaimed with delight at the beauty of the 
 valley vistas which every turn of the river opened to 
 their eyes. And each outburst of admiration brought 
 a low chuckle from the stern-man toiling at his pole, 
 as he thought how little Marie might appreciate the 
 beauty of this land had she but knowTi that these for- 
 
164 TOILERS OF THE TRAILS 
 
 ests bathed in the August svui held in their silent 
 depths terrors unspeakable; that this soft valley, 
 asleep in the spell of the northern summer, was the 
 lair of demons insatiable and pitiless. But Fran9ois 
 Hertel was a wise man and no baiter of women, so 
 held his tongue. 
 
 While they netted and dried whitefish at the lakes, 
 Hertel cruised the country for a good central location 
 for his cabin. Everywhere he found signs of game. 
 The shores of dead-water and pond were trampled by 
 moose which came to feed on lily-roots and water 
 grasses at sundown. The round-toed hoof-prints of 
 caribou trails networked the mud and moss of the 
 muskeg beyond the valley. Along the streams mink 
 and otter had left numberless tracks. Doubtless the 
 hurrying feet of marauding marten, fox, and fisher 
 would mark the first snow on the ridges. Truly the 
 Cree trappers had given the country a wide berth, 
 for never had the Frenchman seen such evidence of 
 game. 
 
 Creeping south from the great bay the first Septem- 
 ber frosts roamed the valley, edging the river with the 
 red of the willows, leaving a wake of birch ridges 
 aflame against the sombre green of the spruce. The 
 rising sim lifting shrouds of river mist, rolled them 
 back to vanish on the ridges, and later died on western 
 hills, hung with haze. 
 
 Long before the first snowfall the Hei'tels moved 
 from their tent to a cabin of spruce logs, chinked with 
 moss, flanked by a mud-mortared stone chimney. Be- 
 side it a pile of birch logs and split wood was heaped^ 
 
VALLEY OF THE WINDIGO 165 
 
 high against the withering cold of the coming long 
 snows. 
 
 Night after night through the October moon the 
 geese honked south, racing the nipping winds which, 
 following hard on the end of the Indian summer, 
 swept the last leaves from poplar and birch. Then 
 suddenly, between one sunset and dawn, narrows and 
 dead-water closed tight, an icy fihn crept out from the 
 lake shores, and the subarctic winter shut in upon the 
 lone cabin in the valley of demons. 
 
 By December the snow stood three feet deep in the 
 forest levels, and for twenty miles the traps of Hertel 
 lay set on the ridges and along the streams. Never 
 had he reaped such a harvest of fur. Black and silver 
 fox, marten, otter, and mink, all had found his traps ; 
 and the pelts of two gray wolves hung on his cabin 
 walls. 
 
 The early dusk of one December day overtook Her- 
 tel at the far end of his lines down the valley, where at 
 a lean-to, thrown together in the fall, he passed the 
 night once or twice a week. Already that buccaneer 
 of the forests, the wolverine, had discovered some 
 of his traps and robbed him of valuable fur. So 
 with the most hated enemy of the trapper loose 
 in the valley, only constant patrolling of his lines 
 could save him the loss of many a prized fox and 
 marten. 
 
 Hertel cut his wood for the night, shovelled away 
 the new snow with a shoe, and built a hot fire at the 
 open end of the lean-to. He threw two whitefish to 
 the husky which drew his small sled, boiled his tea and 
 
166 TOILERS OF THE TRAILS 
 
 moose-meat, then rolled himself in his warm rabbit- 
 skin blankets and slept. 
 
 It was a windless night, when the relentless fingers 
 of the frost grip the timber till it snaps ; when the shell 
 of river and lake, contracting, splits with the boom of 
 cannon, and the stars, glittering like myriad jewels, 
 swarm the heavens. Above the black silhouette of 
 far hills the aurora alternately glowed and died, then, 
 in snakelike ribbons of light, streamed across the 
 north. 
 
 Suddenly the husky, curled beside the blanketed 
 figure by the fire, straightened, lifted his head, and 
 sniffed the stinging air. Then, with hair bristling 
 from ears to tail, he stood up while his shaggy throat 
 swelled in a low rumble of warning to the one who 
 slept. 
 
 Hertel stirred and thrust his head from the blankets. 
 
 " Qu'avez-vous? What's the matter with you? " he 
 grumbled. 
 
 For reply the dog lifted his nose to the stars in a 
 long howl. Thinking the husky had scented game, 
 Hertel was again adjusting his blankets, when 
 across the hushed valley floated a long cry, half 
 howl, rising to a shrill scream, then dying slowly 
 away. 
 
 Again the excited dog flung back the wolfish chal- 
 lenge of the husky to the unknown foe. Quieting the 
 animal, Hertel, now thoroughly aroused, sat up in his 
 blankets, listening intently for a repetition of the wail. 
 Presently it was repeated, but this time farther up the 
 valley. 
 
VALLEY OF THE WINDIGO 167 
 
 The warning of the old Cree at Ptarmigan Lake 
 flashed across his memory. 
 
 " De Windigo, he leeve een dees valley. He rob 
 trap; kill you; eat you' squaw." 
 
 "Bon soir! M'sieu' Weendigo!" called the im- 
 perturbable Frenchman as he reached for his Win- 
 chester in its skiQ case, and, drawing out the rifle, 
 threw a shell into the barrel. Hertel had little fear 
 of the thing that waked the white valley with its un- 
 earthly cries. For if it had lungs to howl, it had lungs 
 and heart and stomach to stop his rifle-bullet, or bleed 
 at the thrust of his knife, and from the Roberval to 
 the white Gatineau, men knew how sure was the eye 
 and what power lay in the right arm, of Fran9ois Her- 
 tel. But, as he sat listening with straining ears, he 
 cudgelled his brain to identify this prowler of the 
 night. Lynx he had heard screaming like a child or 
 a woman in agony; the wolverine, or Injun-devil, he 
 had known to terrify superstitious French and Indian 
 trappers by his maniacal caterwauling, and the howl of 
 timber- wolves on a fresh trail was familiar to his ears; 
 but this was neither lynx, wolf, nor wolverine. What 
 could it be? Then the Cree's flouted tale of the de- 
 mons of the valley returned to mock him. 
 
 For one thing he was deeply thankful — Marie, in 
 the shack with the dog, far up the river, had not been 
 wakened. Now, moreover, she must never know the 
 Cree tradition of the valley or he could not leave her 
 again alone, with this yowling thing, beast or devil, to 
 terrify her. 
 
 Hugging his replenished fire, Hertel smoked a pipe. 
 
168 TOILERS OF THE TRAILS 
 
 wrestling with the mystery, as his dog whined and 
 fretted beside him, then turned into his blankets. 
 
 The next morning he was swinging up the hard- 
 packed river-trail behind his sled thinking of the hot 
 dinner awaiting him at the shack, when the dog 
 stopped, sniffed in the snow, then turned sharply off 
 the trail, upsetting the sled. Running up, Hertel 
 found the husky nosing huge tracks which crossed the 
 sled-trail at right angles. 
 
 "Ah-hah! De Weendigo travel here, eh? " he ex- 
 claimed, studying the footprints. They were shaped 
 somewhat like bear-tracks, with deep indentations of 
 long claws, but larger than any bear-tracks he had 
 ever seen, and, besides, bear were holed up for the 
 winter. What beast, then, could have made that trail? 
 
 In the mental make-up of Hertel there was no trace 
 of superstition. But the emotional Marie was keenly 
 susceptible to the supernatural, and it was of her that 
 he thought as he examined this strange trail in the 
 snow. This thing must be kept from his wife if he 
 wished to finish the winter in the valley. 
 
 As he shuifled through the soft snow beside the trail, 
 one characteristic of the footprints was at once 
 marked by his trained eyes — ^their shallowness. De- 
 spite his tracks, the beast was not heavy or he would 
 have sunk deeper into the snow. Then, from the looks 
 of the trail, he did not pick up his feet; he was a slow 
 and lumbering traveller. The impulse to follow the 
 tracks, run the beast down on snow-shoes with his dog, 
 and have it out with his 30-30 was strong in the 
 hunter; but it meant another night away from Marie, 
 
VALLEY OF THE WINDIGO 169 
 
 and he was anxious to learn how it had gone with her 
 at the shack. The unknown, beast or demon, would 
 feel the sting of his 30-30 in good time. He would 
 now hurry home. 
 
 The husky at the shack howled a welcome to the 
 sled-team, but when Marie opened the door Hertel 
 knew from the look in her eyes that she, too, had heard 
 the cries in the night. 
 
 " Oh, Fran9ois ! " she said weakly, and fell to sob- 
 bing in his arms. 
 
 It had been as he feared. Toward morning the 
 whining dog had roused her. Opening the door, she 
 heard the wail back on the ridge. The dog rushed 
 savagely into the spruce, but was soon scratching at 
 the door, badly frightened. Not until daylight, when 
 the cries ceased, would the husky again leave the 
 shack. 
 
 " Oh, ma cherie, she don' get scare' at one leetle 
 lucivee dat shout lak de grand beeg somet'ing? I 
 hear heem seeng down riviere. Eet ees not'ing." 
 
 In the end, Hertel convinced his wife that she had 
 heard merely the customary shrieking of that great 
 northern cat with tufted ears, the lynx. 
 
 But at heart the Frenchman was worried, for the 
 length of his trap-lines compelled his frequent absence 
 at night from the shack, and another shock like the last 
 would reduce Marie to a state of mind forbidding his 
 leaving her. It was clear that the brute must be 
 hunted down and wiped out at once. No beast, 
 Windigo, or devil should drive Fran9ois Hertel out 
 of free fur-country like a craven Cree. This valley 
 
170 TOILERS OF THE TRAILS 
 
 belonged to the one who could hold it by fair fight or 
 foul. The wild blood of the coureurs-de-bois which 
 coursed the veins of the Frenchman was up. 
 
 Next morning Hertel started under the stars, prom- 
 ising to return before sunset. He was following the 
 shoulder of a long ridge on which were set cabane 
 traps for fisher and marten. In a few of these the 
 bait, as usual, had lured foraging moose-birds or 
 squirrel interlopers to their doom. Resetting the 
 traps, he continued on until a shattered cabane with 
 the silent witnesses in the snow about it told a story 
 which brought from his throat a cry of rage. 
 
 The jaws of the steel trap gripped the severed fore 
 foot of a marten, while, strewn with tufts of fur, the 
 blood-stained snow in the vicinity was trampled by the 
 same tracks which had crossed the sled-trail on the 
 river. 
 
 Quickly freeing the excited husky from his harness, 
 Hertel, fierce for revenge, abandoned his sled and took 
 up the trail. With this plunderer loose on his trap- 
 ping-grounds, his long days of toil would be thrown 
 away. He must either kill his enemy at once or drive 
 him from the valley. Over ridges and horsebacks, 
 down along frozen watercourses, the pursuing trapper 
 followed the tracks in the snow. For a space the 
 eager husky led, but at length the long snow-shoe 
 swing wore down the plunging dog, who sank deep at 
 every leap, and he was content to follow in the better 
 going of the packed trail of his master. On through 
 the hours of the short December day toiled man and 
 dog. If his quarry had not too long a start on him, 
 
VALLEY OF THE WINDIGO 171 
 
 Hertel knew he would overhaul it in the deep snow 
 before the dusk, for, from the spacing and the depth 
 of the tracks, the animal was travelling slowly. Twice 
 it had stopped to rest, leaving an impression that 
 baffled the woodcraft of the Frenchman. If he could 
 only, for an instant, line up his rifle-sights on this 
 robber, he, Fran9ois Hertel, would give him a " bon- 
 jour" of lead that would sicken him — evil spirit, 
 Windigo, or furry thief — of the game of ruining the 
 trapping of a Saint Maurice man. 
 
 Finally, in the afternoon, the trail led over the 
 watershed ridges into a muskeg country to the south. 
 The masked sun dipped behind western hills and dusk 
 already hung in the thick timber, when the tracks 
 brought weary man and dog to the edge of a wide 
 barren. Shortly the swift northern night would close 
 in, and he was already three hours' hard snow-shoeing 
 from the shack. 
 
 With hood thrown back from his unbelted capote, 
 while, even in the freezing air, the sweat coursed down 
 the bold features, Hertel searched with narrowed eyes 
 the silent reaches of the white barren, but in vain. 
 He would have followed the trail deep into the moon- 
 lit night, camped on it, and taken it up at daylight, 
 but he had promised to return to a woman who waited 
 alone back in the valley. With a sigh he turned 
 homeward with his dog. 
 
 In the days following he found his mink and otter 
 traps on the streams around the headwater lakes im- 
 molested, and reached the shack without again cross- 
 ing the strange trail. 
 
172 TOILERS OF THE TRAILS 
 
 On the night of his return Hertel was pulling at his 
 after-supper pipe, watching a piece of smoke-tanned 
 moose-hide take the shape of a moccasin in the capable 
 hands of Marie, when one of the dogs stood up with a 
 low growl, hair bristling like a mad porcupine's quills. 
 Then both huskies made for the door. Hertel sprang 
 to the low entrance of the shack, while his wife's dark 
 face went white with dread. Outside, the light from 
 a frozen moon flooded the clearing in the forest. 
 Hertel hushed the dogs, blocking the open door with 
 his body, then waited, tense as a bow-string. Shortly, 
 from the ridge back of the shack, drifted out over the 
 still valley a wail, half-human, rising to a cat-like 
 scream piercing in intensity, then slowly dying away. 
 
 The trapper closed the door, pushed aside the 
 clamoring huskies, and seized his caribou-skin coat and 
 fur mittens. 
 
 " Mon Dieu, eet ees le diable! Eet ees le diable! " 
 moaned the terrified woman. " Don' leeve me, 
 Fran9ois ! " 
 
 " Eet ees only de lucivee! " the man insisted as she 
 clung to him. " He shout beeg, dees lynx, but he 
 seeng 'noder song w'en he feel de bullet." 
 
 With such talk he strove to hearten the horror- 
 stricken woman, but Hertel knew that the dread cry 
 that chilled the blood of all living things that heard it 
 was the howl of no lynx. What it was he was going 
 up into the black spruce to find out. 
 
 " I leeve de husky and shotgun. You safe wid 
 dem." And embracing the hysterical girl he closed 
 the door against the dogs, who were useless in a still 
 
VALLEY OF THE WINDIGO 173 
 
 hunt, stepped into the thongs of his snow-shoes, and 
 started up the ridge. 
 
 The muscles of Hertel's face set stone-hard as he 
 hurried in the direction from which had come the cry. 
 To-night his enemy should not escape him. The beast 
 was not more than a mile or two back in the " bush," 
 and in the deep snow the trapper knew that he could 
 give any four-footed creature in the North that much 
 start and run him down before dawn, for no dog- 
 runner from Lake Saint John to Flying Post on the 
 Ottawa headwaters could take the trail and hold it 
 from Fran9ois Hertel. Beast or devil, whatever he 
 was, he left tracks in the snow to follow. Beast or 
 devil — and there had been enough in the last few days 
 to sway a mind less balanced, to shake nerves less 
 steady, than Hertel's — ^if it made tracks in the snow 
 and howled at night, there was flesh and blood for his 
 bullet and knife to find. If neither lead nor steel 
 could tear its vitals, then Hertel was beaten. It was 
 Windigo or demon, as the Cree had said, and he would 
 slink out of the vaUey like a whipped husky. So ran 
 the thoughts of the desperate Frenchman as he 
 mounted the ridge. 
 
 At length he stood on the crest of the hill over- 
 looking the frozen river-valley lit by the low moon, 
 when the eerie wail lifted from the black forest in a 
 creek-bottom below him. 
 
 Hertel glanced at the action of his rifle and broke 
 into a run. As he swung swiftly through the soimd- 
 less forest, ghostly shapes of snow-shoe rabbits 
 faded before him into the white waste; a snowy 
 
174 TOILERS OF THE TRAILS 
 
 owl, disturbed in his hunting, floated off like a 
 wraith. 
 
 He had travelled some distance when suddenly he 
 ran into the familiar trail of the beast at the edge of 
 a spruce swamp. 
 
 " Now," muttered the hunter, " you run lak snow- 
 shoe rabbit, M'sieu' Weendigo, or dees tam Fran9ois 
 Hertel get you." 
 
 Fear of the hated thing was not in him. The raw 
 lust for battle made his blood hot as he plunged for- 
 ward on the trail. Again rose the cry, this time 
 nearer. His quarry had neither scented nor heard 
 him, for plainly he was not travelling. But already 
 the wind had shifted and, to the chagrin of the trapper, 
 the moon now traversed a thickening sky where the 
 stars grew dim. Hertel cursed under his breath, for 
 without light the tracks would be lost in the gloom of 
 the spruce. He was following stealthily now, lifting 
 his feet to muffle the click of his shoes, his muscles 
 tense as springs for the swift action which sight of the 
 beast would loose. 
 
 Finally, from the top of a hard-wood knoll, his keen 
 eyes swept a beaver meadow some distance below, to 
 make out, entering the thick scrub at its edge, a dark 
 shape. The rifle flew to his shoulder. Once, twice, 
 three times the silence was shattered; then the trapper 
 ran as only one born in the North can run on snow- 
 shoes. At the spot where the beast had disappeared 
 there was no blood sign on the snow, but the lopped 
 branch of a fir told by how little the snap-shot in the 
 dim light of the forest had missed its mark. 
 
THE EIFLE FLEW TO HIS SHOULDER 
 
VALLEY OF THE WINDIGO 175 
 
 Plunging ahead, he took up the trail, less distinct 
 now, in the masked light of the moon and stars. If 
 he were to see his game again, he had no time to lose. 
 The trail now doubled back toward the swamp, and 
 the moon and stars were soon gone. The frenzied 
 hunter was forced to bend low to distinguish the 
 tracks which zigzagged through low cedar and spruce. 
 Time and again he tripped and fell as he forced his 
 way headlong through the brush on the flank of the 
 swamp. Then he ran into a network of tracks lead- 
 ing in all directions, utterly obliterating the fresh trail 
 he followed. The wily brute had doubled back to his 
 starting-point that night, where his trail would be 
 lost. The game was up. 
 
 Soon even his own back tracks were indistinguish- 
 able, so with a wide circle through the swamp the dis- 
 appointed trapper turned homeward. But in his de- 
 feat there was ground for hope. He had seen the 
 thing in the life, unmistakably ; shot at it, and learned 
 that it feared the man on its trail. Instead of raging 
 at him with teeth and claws, or loosing upon its help- 
 less victim the black terrors of the old Cree's tale, this 
 Windigo, devil, or what you will, had travelled like a 
 bull caribou for the safety of the swamp. Elated at 
 the thought, the Frenchman laughed loudly; beast or 
 evil spirit, it had no magic for the rifle-bullet of Fran- 
 9ois Hertel. Some day luck would turn, some day a 
 wail should rise in the valley that would wake even the 
 sleeping bears in their dens. It would be the death- 
 cry of M'sieu' Weendigo. 
 
 At the shack he found his wife keeping sleepless 
 
176 TOILERS OF THE TRAILS 
 
 vigil for his retxirn. The agony of fear she had en- 
 dured was plainly written on the d^a^vn face. 
 
 " You see de Weendigo? " she gasped, 
 
 " Oua, I see heem," laughed the hardy Frenchman, 
 taking her in his arms. " I shoot, and he run lak 
 snow-shoe rabbit for de swanip. I mak' bad shot for 
 de light. Eet ees only beeg luciree. I get heem 
 some day in de trap." And he patted her shoulders 
 reassuringly. 
 
 Marie's travels took her no farther than her rabbit 
 and ptarmigan snares in the neighboring forest, so she 
 did not know that in size the tracks of the beast 
 dwarfed those of a lynx, and he did not intend she 
 should. 
 
 The day following Hertd beat through the s^vamp, 
 but so many tracks led out of it over the watershed 
 that he gave up all idea of immediate piirsuit. Re- 
 tiu-ning to the shack he overhauled two bear-traps, the 
 steel jaws of which bristled with vicious teeth, har- 
 nessed a husky to the sled, and started for his marten 
 cabanes across the river. There, before two of the 
 stick houses, he buried in the snow the traps with their 
 log clogs in the manner that he hid lynx-traps to take 
 the pilfering wolverines that had already harassed 
 his lines. If the night-wailer followed down this 
 trap-line again, he would not escape the hidden steel 
 jaws gapinsr under the snow. Then on a line of 
 fisher-traps Hertel erected three log deadfalls, which 
 would crush the life from a three-hundred-povmd bear. 
 
 " Eef he got bone to break, dees wed break dem," 
 chuckled the trapper as he turned homeward. 
 
VALLEY OF THE WINDIGO 177 
 
 For a week Hertel patrolled the sleeping forests of 
 the white valley, but neither heard his enemy nor 
 found fresh signs. Twice he climbed the big ridge 
 and traversed the swamp beyond, where he had lost 
 the trail the night the moon failed him, but evidently 
 the beast had abandoned his former haunts, for the 
 new snow lay unmarked. Over the river the logs in 
 the deadfalls stiU menaced the doomed creature that 
 should trip them, but the yawning jaws of one of the 
 bear-traps had closed on a yoimg wolverine rashly 
 entering the house of sticks which his cimning elders 
 first would have torn to pieces gingerly from the rear, 
 then ferreted out the bait, or eaten the animal in the 
 sprung trap inside. 
 
 Another week of waiting passed and Hertel began 
 to wonder if the beast had quit the countiy. Then, 
 one bitter night on his return under the stars from the 
 lakes, the familiar challenge floated faintly up the 
 valley, 
 
 "Ah-hah! Eet ees you, mon ami?" he muttered, 
 and quickened his stride. He had travelled for some 
 time when the cry was repeated. The thought of 
 Marie alone in the shack with the cowed huskies, while 
 the skulking thing was loose in the neighboring forest, 
 spurred him into a run. He was nearly home when 
 again the windless night was filled with the horror of 
 the lingering wail echoing from the hills. Now the 
 runner on the river-trail was close enough to locate 
 his enemy. The beast was on the ridge the trapper 
 had prepared for him. 
 
 "By Gar!" Hertel exclaimed, in his joy at the 
 
m TOILERS OF THE TRAILS 
 
 discovery. " I get you dees tarn, M'sieu' Weendigo, 
 for sure." 
 
 Shaking a mittened fist at the black hill across the 
 valley, he turned up to his cabin, where he found 
 Marie and the dogs with nerves on edge over the re- 
 turn of the dreaded prowler of the night. 
 
 While the Frenchman wished to give his traps and 
 deadfalls a fair chance to catch the plunderer, the fear 
 that the beast might avoid them and again escape 
 hurried him through supper. Heartening the trem- 
 bling Marie as best he could, he oiled the action of his 
 Winchester and was off. With the approach of Jan- 
 uary the nights were growing increasingly bitter. 
 Entering the stinging air, Hertel drew the fur-lined 
 hood of his capote over his face, where his hot breath 
 turned to ice on his mustache, and reknotted the sash 
 at his waist. The inexorable grip of the frost was 
 tightening on the ice-locked valley. 
 
 He climbed the ridge and waited, for the beast 
 might leave the trap-line if he discovered that he was 
 followed. Once Hertel heard the cry hardly a mile 
 away, then he went to his first fisher-trap. The thief 
 had done his work well. The trap was sprung and 
 the bait gone. The second had been treated in the 
 same way. At the next trap was a deadfall, and the 
 Frenchman's heart pounded with hope as he ap- 
 proached. The drop-log had been tripped and lay 
 in the snow in front of the cabane, which was torn to 
 pieces. 
 
 The trapper cursed out loud. The cunning of the 
 beast was uncanny. Through the brain of Hertel 
 
VALLEY OF THE WINDIGO 179 
 
 there flashed a flicker of doubt. Could this after all 
 be the work of a devil in brute shape? But the 
 Frenchman's head was hard, and grasping his rifle 
 he continued on. 
 
 For some time the night had been free from the 
 voice, when, as he approached his second deadfall, the 
 wail again rose from the lower shoulder of the ridge 
 down the valley. But, as it lifted in volume to the 
 maniacal scream, it ceased abruptly, as if choked off 
 by some giant hand. 
 
 Hertel found the remaining deadfalls in similar 
 condition to the first. The tracks on the snow told 
 the same story. The ponderous engines of destruc- 
 tion had been rendered harmless from the outside by 
 the crafty thief. 
 
 There was one hope left — ^the toothed jaws of steel 
 hidden in the snow at the end of the marten line. He 
 would go to them at once and take up the trail from 
 there. 
 
 The cold was increasing. Deeper and deeper bit 
 the fangs of the frost. His eyebrows and mustache 
 were a mass of ice. Time and again all feeling left 
 his toes under the thongs of his shoes, and he swxmg 
 his gun from mittened hand to hand to keep up cir- 
 culation. The boom of the riven river-ice and the 
 snap of the timber alone violated the white silence un- 
 der the star-incrusted sky. 
 
 The lone runner in the forest approached the first 
 of his bear-traps at the marten cabanes. If the hairy 
 thief had escaped these, little hope remained of run- 
 ning him down that night in this withering air which 
 
180 TOILERS OF THE TRAILS 
 
 cut the lungs like thrusts of a knife. Rounding a 
 thicket of low spruce, Hertel sighted the trap. Like 
 a flash the hunter dropped to his knees, cocked rifle 
 at his shoulder. One, two, three seconds his eye held 
 his sights lined on a black shape by the cabane. But 
 the mass on the snow was motionless. Then, rising, 
 Hertel stealthily moved forward, rifle ready. Sus- 
 picious, he stopped a hundred feet from the trap, peer- 
 ing long at the spectacle before hin;i, then slowly shook 
 his head. With rifle thrust forward and every nerve 
 tense, Hertel approached the trap. Was his enemy 
 in his power at last, or was he being lured into some 
 fiendish ambuscade? He glanced quickly to the side 
 and rear. There was nothing there. The shape in 
 the snow did not stir. Then he walked deliberately 
 to the trap. 
 
 "By Gar!" 
 
 The Frenchman stared at the hairy bulk crushed in 
 the grip of the merciless steel jaws. 
 
 He touched the thing with his snow-shoe. It was 
 frozen stiff. 
 
 With a wrench he turned the heavy trap and its 
 victim over — to stare into the swart face, hideous in 
 its grimace of death, of a Cree Indian. 
 
THE QUEST OF NARCISSE LABLANCHE 
 
THE QUEST OF NARCISSE LABLANCHE 
 
 "Quey! Quey!" As he spoke, the bowman of 
 the thirty-foot freighter bound up the Albany to Fort 
 Matagami on the English River, rose to his feet, shad- 
 ing his eyes with a lean hand. 
 
 Up-stream, the far flash of dripping paddles in the 
 July sun already low on Keewatin hUls, marked an 
 approaching canoe. " What is it, David? " called a 
 bearded Scotchman from the stern of the big birch- 
 bark, which bore on its curved bow the letters H. B. C. 
 
 " Four paddle! 'Jibway! " replied the half-breed 
 after an interval, still watching intently the regularly 
 repeated dip and swing of spruce blades driven by 
 sinewy hands in the oncoming craft. 
 
 " Ojibway crew? It must be a Fort Hope boat, 
 then," said the Scotchman. " Swing her inshore. 
 We'U wait for 'em." 
 
 The bowman thrust forward his long paddle, and, 
 with a turn, pried the nose of the canoe off the cur- 
 rent, while five narrow Cree blades drove the boat 
 sidling to the shore. 
 
 Shortly the nearing canoe, swept down-stream by 
 the vicious lunge of its Ojibway crew, aided by the 
 swift current, was within speaking distance. 
 
 Again the bowman called. 
 
 " Bo' -jo' ! Bo'-jo' ! " came the answer from many 
 
 183 
 
184 TOILERS OF THE TRAILS 
 
 throats, and with a few strokes the up-river canoe was 
 alongside. 
 
 " Hello, Craig! What brings you to Albany in 
 July? We passed your York boats yesterday home- 
 ward bound," called the factor of Fort Matagami. 
 
 " The same reason, Walter Douglas, that brought 
 you to the Bay with your English River brigade when 
 you belong at home — the longing for the sight of a. 
 red Scotch beard and the taste of a drop of Highland 
 dew." 
 
 While Douglas acquainted the Fort Hope factor 
 with the news from the outside world brought by the 
 spring ship to James Bay, the crews, holding the 
 canoes against the current with propped setting poles, 
 exchanged the gossip of the fur-posts in a medley of 
 Ojibway, Cree, and broken English. But one, a tall 
 French-Cree, leaning on his pole behind the bowman 
 of the Matagami boat, took no part in the chatter. 
 As he listened, his black eyes wandered from one to 
 another of the up-river crew. Finally, his gaze 
 f ocussed momentarily on the grizzled sternman whose 
 sharp features, and lighter color even under the tan, 
 marked a strong strain of French blood. Presently 
 the low sun warned the Company men of the neces- 
 sity for seeking camp-gi-oimds and the canoes parted. 
 
 The Fort Hope boat had left the freighter slowly 
 bucking the current and was well down-stream, when 
 the yoimg breed in the Matagami canoe said, in Cree, 
 to the bowman: 
 
 " The old man in the canoe from Hope — he is no 
 Ojibway? " 
 
QUEST OF XARCISSE LABLANCHE 185 
 
 " No," replied David, over his shoulder, " he is a 
 Frenchman. He comes from Quebec." 
 
 " Why does he work at a post in the Ojibway 
 country? " 
 
 " I don't know. He came to the Bay many snows 
 ago." 
 
 " What is his name? " 
 
 " They call him Black Jack." 
 
 " Black Jack? " Rising to his feet, the younger 
 man turned with an oath toward the down-river boat. 
 
 " What's the matter with you, Narcisse? Sit 
 down ! " shouted Douglas from the stem. 
 
 Ignoring the command, Narcisse Lablanche, his 
 dark features distorted with hate, hurled curse after 
 curse at the fast-disappearing canoe. 
 
 In wonder at this paroxysm of rage, the bowman 
 turned to him: 
 
 " What you do, Narcisse? De * mal-de-tete ' get 
 you? " 
 
 A parting grimace of mingled hatred and despair 
 twisted the swart features of the frenzied youth as he 
 turned from the boat speeding down the Albany trail. 
 Then until the freighter swung into the shore for the 
 night, the boiling of Albany water behind his blade as 
 he followed the quick strokes of the bowman, or the 
 vicious drive of his pole as he threw his weight into it, 
 alone told of the desperation and grief that obsessed 
 him. 
 
 As the crew unloaded the long craft preparatory to 
 turning it over on the shore, the factor spoke to 
 him: 
 
186 TOILERS OF THE TRAILS 
 
 " Look here, Xarcisse, you stick in camp to-night 
 and don't go trailin' down-river after that Fort Hope 
 crowd. You can't settle any old scores on this trip. 
 If you're missing when we break camp to-morrow, 
 there'll be trouble. LTnderstand? " 
 
 But the silent Xarcisse had no answer for his chief. 
 Later, when the men sprawled around the fire after 
 supper, the tall bo\\Tnan sought the sullen youth, who 
 sat apart, head in hands, gazing moodily between nar- 
 rowed eyelids at the blazing birch logs. 
 
 David sat down at his side, produced a black plug, 
 cut with his knife a pipeful, and handed the plug to 
 Xarcisse. Lablanche took the tobacco and filled his 
 pipe. Then the older man drew a burning ember 
 from the fire and lighted both pipes. For a time 
 they smoked, until the older man spat at the fire and 
 broke the silence. 
 
 " You never see heem before, dees Black Jack? " 
 
 The face of Xarcisse remained set, the beady eyes 
 intent on the fire. From the rigid hps came no an- 
 swer. 
 
 The two smoked on. Finally, after an interval, the 
 yormger man took the pipe from his mouth, expelled 
 a cloud of smoke, and with eyes still on the fire, said 
 slowly: 
 
 " It ees many long snows." 
 
 Again silence, vmtil the older man ventured: 
 
 " You not lak heem? " 
 
 Slowly came the low answer: " He be dead man 
 now, eef I know heem to-day." 
 
 "Ah-hah! " the other murmured, exhaling a mouth- 
 
QUEST OF NARCISSE LABLANCHE 187 
 
 ful of smoke. Then, Indian-like, he threw out in- 
 directly: 
 
 " He mak' some bad t'ings wid your famUe? " 
 
 The stone-hard face of Narcisse Lablanche for the 
 first time relaxed. His mouth shaped a bitter smile 
 as he nodded. 
 
 " Oua, he mak' some leetle trouble wid my famile. 
 Ah-hah! Some leetle trouble! " he repeated, and the 
 deep-set eyes took on a far-away look as though the 
 words of David had conjured a vision of pain out of 
 the past — a, cruel memory. Then he drew a sinewy 
 hand across his brow as if to blot out the picture. 
 " Oua," continued Lablanche, " he was so close to-day, 
 I keel heem wid de knife." His lean fingers closed 
 convulsively as if upon the throat of his enemy. 
 
 He rose, took an ember from the fire, and lit the 
 pipe which had gone out. Then he resumed his seat 
 beside the silent bowman and began, in the Cree 
 tongue of their mothers: 
 
 " This I speak, for you were to me a father when 
 I came to Fort Matagami. Never in the many moons 
 we have journeyed by canoe and dog-team have you 
 asked me what trouble eats at my heart. The stem- 
 man from Fort Hope, some day, I will kiU as the gray 
 wolf knis the moose that is weak from age and hunger. 
 So ! " Thrusting out his right hand in a quick move- 
 ment, the speaker opened and shut his fingers, fol- 
 lowing the gesture with a turn of the wrist. 
 
 " Many moons have I camped on his trail; north 
 up the east shore of the Big Water under the white 
 lights where the Husky sleeps in snow-tepees, and 
 
188 TOILERS OF THE TRAILS 
 
 hunts in skin canoes the long-toothed fish that breathe 
 the air, and the seal, brother to the otter, and the great 
 bear with fur like the snow. But I never looked on 
 his face, for they told him I had come to find him. 
 
 " Far into the Ojibway country beyond Lac Seul, 
 to the great Lake of the Spirit, I wandered to that 
 fort of the Company called Norway House, but, fear- 
 ing me, he had gone. 
 
 " Into the south I travelled, even to the trail over 
 which the white man drives the iron horse fed with 
 fire; but always, he had gone. One summer I went 
 on the Company boat to Fort Churchill, many sleeps 
 over the Big Water toward the setting sun, for they 
 told me he had wintered there with the French traders. 
 But no man knew where he had journeyed. He had 
 travelled in a Company canoe to Lac Isle-a-la-Cross, 
 and the crew had returned without him. 
 
 " Over the north I have followed him from the day 
 I was strong enough to voyage in Company boat or 
 drive the dogs. Eight long snows have drifted and 
 vanished in the sun since I left Albany and the good 
 Pere Bisant at the mission, to search for this man. 
 And now to-day, I found him and knew him not." 
 
 Again the tense features of the speaker knotted 
 with pain. The man at his side smoked on. In a 
 moment the other continued: 
 
 " He was a dead man to-day, but he has gone." 
 
 Once more David ventured: " He is a bad man; he 
 made trouble with your famile, maybe? " 
 
 Slowly came the answer: " He killed my mother." 
 
 "Ah-hah!" 
 
QUEST OF NARCISSE LABLANCHE 189 
 
 " He killed my mother, and I will find and kill him 
 if his trail reaches into the sunset even to the great 
 Barren Grounds." 
 
 For some time the two men sat watching the fire. 
 Then Narcisse spoke: 
 
 " I will tell you a story. 
 
 " Many snows ago a Frenchman came to Fort Al- 
 bany. His dogs were better than any the Crees had. 
 He had credit, too, with the Company, and was a 
 good hunter and canoeman, so the factor said who 
 had known him in Quebec. He came from the Timis- 
 kiming country with a fine outfit — canoe, tent, traps, 
 everything. That summer, at the mission, he mar- 
 ried my mother, a young girl." 
 
 The speaker paused as if to control the emotion that 
 memory roused in him, then continued: 
 
 " It was the winter of the rabbit-plague. We were 
 camped far on the headwaters of the Drowning River. 
 There were three of us. I had seen four summers, 
 but there was no other child. The snow came early 
 and was the longest in many years. Toward spring, 
 the salt goose and dried fish were gone, and the moose 
 and caribou had left the country. It was hard to 
 travel, for the snow kept filling up the trails after they 
 were hardened. Never had there been so much snow. 
 Although my mother set her rabbit-snares for many 
 miles around our camp, because of the plague she 
 caught few; and the partridge and ptarmigan were 
 starving a.nd scarce." 
 
 Lablanche was silent for a space, then began again. 
 
 " It was the moon of the breaking of the snow-shoes. 
 
190 TOILERS OF THE TRAILS 
 
 The ice still held in the river, but the trails were too 
 soft for travel with the sled, and besides we had eaten 
 our dogs. We caught few fish in the net under the 
 ice or with bait, and were slowly starving. Unless 
 my father found moose or caribou soon, the river 
 would open too late for us to reach Henley House. 
 
 " I was very young, but I remember, now, the look 
 in my mother's eyes when she put me in the blankets 
 at night. That I might eat she starved. The rabbits 
 she snared she often hid from him, that I might have 
 enough, for my father needed much food to give him 
 strength to hunt. Often, when he found me eating, 
 they quarrelled. But she loved her son and was not 
 afraid. 
 
 "At last, one night, when he returned with no game, 
 they talked long in the tepee by the fire. Before 
 daylight, my father left to hunt for caribou, as he 
 had to travel far before the sun softened the snow. 
 Days we waited, my mother and I, living on a rabbit 
 and a few fish." 
 
 Lablanche sat long, with his head in his hands. 
 Then he finished his story. 
 
 " She never saw him again. His heart was rotten, 
 like the spring ice in the lakes. After many sleeps, 
 he crawled, half dead, into Henley House and fat- 
 tened there, while his wife and child starved far on 
 the Drowning River. She took food from herself 
 that I might live. When the ice went out, she caught 
 a few fish, and a rabbit now and then, but there came 
 a sun when she was too weak to go to the snares. 
 One night she took me in her arms and lay down in 
 
QUEST OF XARCISSE LAELAyCHE 191 
 
 our blankets. In the morning when I cried to 
 her, she heard me not. I toudied her face. It was 
 cold- 
 
 " She would starve no more that her son might 
 live. She had gone to the Happy Valley where there 
 are no long snows and men with the hearts of wolver- 
 ines, to wait for me. Later some Crees found our 
 tepee and brought me to Henl^ House." 
 
 The speaker stopped, then, turning to the man at 
 his side, said: 
 
 " He left us that he might fill his belly. We could 
 not all reach the post, until the river opened, so he 
 went away alone. Some day I will have his throat 
 here in my two hands, so, and as he begs for life and 
 chokes, I will say: ' This is for the little starved 
 mother and the chQd you deserted on the Drowning 
 River. This child you gave life, now giv^ you death 
 for the woman you forgot.' " 
 
 " You do well to keel heem. He ees a ver' bad 
 man," David said. 
 
 One afternoon, weeks later, a birch-bark was slowly 
 poled up the rapids below Martin's Falls on the middle 
 Albany. The lean face of the half-breed voyageur 
 lighted with a sraQe as he turned a bend and recog- 
 nized the buildings of the loneliest fur-post in On- 
 tario, huddled on the high shore above the white water. 
 Swiftly his long pole drove the light craft against 
 the current, the practise of years making easy what 
 would have been an impossible feat for one less 
 skilled. Greeted at the shore by a pack of half-wild 
 
192 TOILERS OF THE TRAILS 
 
 huskies which he kicked out of his way, he climbed the 
 path leading to the stockade and trade-house. 
 
 "Quey! Quey!" grunted the half-breed factor, 
 surprised at the appearance of a single Company In- 
 dian at this season on the middle Albany. 
 
 " De old man from Fort Hope, he has passed on 
 his return? " was the eager question. 
 
 " No, he's down-river still. What you doin' up 
 here? I t'o't you were a Matagami man." 
 
 " I carry letter for old man at Fort Hope. When 
 I reach de Albanee, I t'ink he gone by, and I come 
 up six sleeps." 
 
 " Six sleeps? By Gar! you travel fast." 
 
 By sunrise on the following morning many a mile 
 of racing river separated the canoe of Narcisse from 
 the post at Martin's Falls. Three days he travelled 
 before sighting his quest far below the mouth of the 
 English. Then one late afternoon, beneath a flock of 
 gray geese swinging down-stream into the far dis- 
 tance, he saw the flash of paddles. 
 
 "Ah-hah! " he muttered. "At last he comes to me. 
 One sleep will see de end of dees ' malade ' in de heart 
 of Narcisse Lablanche," He turned his canoe to the 
 shore and hid it in the thick brush. Then he waited. 
 
 It was after sundown when the Fort Hope boat 
 came abreast of the watcher in the willows. As they 
 followed the west shore of the wide river, seeking a 
 camp-ground, the faces of the crew were indistinguish- 
 able, but there in the stern stood the man whom for 
 eight years he had hunted through the wide nortK. 
 The eyes of the half-breed glittered as he watched 
 
QUEST OF NARCISSE LABLANCHE 193 
 
 them poling slowly against the current. His heart 
 tortured him with its pounding. 
 
 Not a hundred yards above him they landed on the 
 opposite shore and made camp. Where the watcher 
 lay, the laughter of the crew, as they busied them- 
 selves with their cooking and pitched the leaking 
 seams of the birch-bark, drifted across on the twilight 
 air. When the dusk fell, the light of their fire against 
 the background of spruce marked his goal to the one 
 who had waited years for this moment. 
 
 Stars pierced the purple sky as night closed in on 
 the restless river. Pipes were smoked and the light 
 from the fire went low. Dark shapes passed to and 
 fro, and finally he knew that they were rolled in their 
 blankets. 
 
 For two hours he waited that they might lie deep 
 in sleep when he crossed. Then, putting his canoe 
 into the water, he paddled swiftly down-stream to the 
 opposite shore. The river ran too strong for pad- 
 dling against the current and he dared not pole, so he 
 waded silently, drawing the canoe behind him. A 
 hundred yards below the camp he left the boat on the 
 beach and crept toward the sleepers. The fire was 
 almost dead, but the waning light from the red embers 
 threw into relief the white mosquito tent of the factor. 
 Waiting a moment with ear strained for the breathing 
 of the crew, he rose to his knees behind some low 
 willows and looked. There, rolled in their blankets 
 near the fire, they lay. But the man he sought — 
 which was he? 
 
 Narcisse stood upright to obtain a better view, when 
 
194 TOILERS OF THE TRAILS 
 
 a snore and a groan from a sleeper dropped him flat 
 on his chest. The " Hoo-hoo, hoo-hoo " of a gray owl 
 held him there, scarcely breathing, A wood-mouse 
 skimmed over the leaves. Then, like a blanket, silence 
 fell again. 
 
 After years of fruitless search this man whom he 
 hunted should not escape him through too much haste. 
 The night was young; so he lay, shaken by his labor- 
 ing heart as a boat by its engine. 
 
 Later he stole into the friendly depth of some 
 young balsam that he might study the sleeping shapes. 
 But not a face was exposed. Indian-fashion, and to 
 escape the flies, they slept with blankets over their 
 heads. There lay four men — three Ojibways and a 
 Frenchman, Which was his man? 
 
 Learning nothing where he was, he began to crawl 
 on his stomach nearer. He had his knife in his teeth 
 noAV, for it was swift work and a quick flight that lay 
 before him. No slow strangling while the terror in 
 his victim's eyes faded into the glassy stare of death. 
 No one should know; David would keep his secret 
 safe at Matagami. A deep thrust home, and daylight 
 would overtake him a day's journey down the river. 
 
 He raised his head to look at the two men who lay 
 near him, side by side. Their moccasins were Ojib- 
 way. A Frenchman in summer would sleep in his 
 socks. Again he circled back, and approached from 
 the rear the remaining two sleepers. An Ojibway 
 moccasin, poked out of a blanket, covered the foot of 
 one. Besides, this was a large man, too large to be 
 the one he sought. 
 
QUEST OF NARCISSE LABLANCHE 195 
 
 As he lay within striking distance of the other a 
 wave of exultation swept him. Trembling with the 
 joy of the moment, Narcisse Lablanehe forgot his 
 danger and the long trail he had taken to reach this 
 man. Memory gripped like fingers of steel at his 
 throat. He saw a hollow-cheeked little mother in a 
 tepee, on the Drowning River, feeding her son while 
 she starved. His face set hard. His teeth bit at the 
 blade of his knife. Closer he wormed his way to the 
 sleeping form. He was within arm's length of his 
 goal when the sleeper moved, groaning in his dreams. 
 In a flash Lablanehe had his knife at the muffled 
 throat. Again the sleeper groaned, mumbling in 
 O jib way. 
 
 The pounding heart of Narcisse, checked, turned to 
 ice. He became desperate. Could he have made a 
 mistake? He must see the sleeper's face at the haz- 
 ard of waking him and the whole camp. 
 
 The regular snoring was resumed. Narcisse took 
 a position at full length by the side of his victim. If 
 any of them waked but partially and saw him, he 
 would be mistaken for one of the crew. A stockinged 
 foot showed beneath the blanket. The rest wore Ojib- 
 way moccasins. It was he whom he sought. 
 
 Slowly, with great care, he began cutting a slit in 
 the soft Company blanket which, tucked xmder, 
 covered the back of the sleeper's head. If the hair 
 was grizzled, it was his man, and he would drive the 
 knife deep in under the left shoulder-blade, and make 
 for the canoe. 
 
 He had cut the two sides of a flap that would expose 
 
196 TOILERS OF THE TRAILS 
 
 the hair, when the sleeper moaned and changed his 
 position. Burying his face in his arm, Narcisse 
 snored loudly, watching from the corner of his eye. 
 With a grunt the man sank again in slumber. For a 
 long while the hunter lay motionless, then he carefully 
 turned back the flap he had cut in the blanket. 
 
 Pain stabbed his heart as his knife would have 
 pierced that of his victim. The hair beneath was 
 black as a crow's wing. 
 
 Dazed, and in his disappointment reckless now of 
 the danger of being caught, he rose and carefully ex- 
 amined the three men he had passed by. They were 
 all Ojibways. 
 
 Despair crushed him. The one he sought had 
 escaped. Raising his hands to the stars, he shook his 
 clenched fist at the Fate that so ironically thwarted 
 him, and stole back to his canoe. 
 
 Four days later, at Albany, Pere Bisant walked be- 
 fore his mission on the river shore, w;ith a kindly arm 
 across the shoulders of a tall half-breed. 
 
 " Yes, he came with the Fort Hope boat, but 
 went to Moose in a Company canoe, and is, no 
 doubt, headed for Timiskiming and the settle- 
 ments." 
 
 " He knew that I would not let him live at Fort 
 Hope till the long snow," said the voyageur bitterly. 
 " I have lost him again." 
 
 " My son, when will you put this revenge from 
 your heart, this fire that consumes you? Have I not 
 told you these many years that the Great Father will 
 
QUEST OF NARCISSE LABLANCELE 197 
 
 not forgive one who slays hiin who has given him 
 life? " 
 
 " Yes, father, but the hunger and the thirst and the 
 pain will not die. It is always here." The speaker 
 struck his chest with clenched fist. "Always the face 
 of that little starving mother is in my thoughts. Al- 
 ways those eyes, so sad, so big, look at me. I will 
 hunt him till I can run no longer with the dogs or 
 journey in the Company boats. I will follow his trail 
 while this arm can strike with the knife, or these 
 fingers sink into his throat." 
 
 " My son, from the time I taught you as a child in 
 the mission school, I have loved you, and it grieves me 
 that this demon still rages in your heart. I would 
 that the man would die and give you peace." 
 
 Six years later Narcisse Lablanche, head voyageur 
 at Fort Matagami, drove the Fort Albany winter 
 packet around to the trade-house to get the mail-bag 
 and his provisions for the trip. Douglas, the factor, 
 was finishing a letter to the commissioner at Winnipeg 
 as the courier entered the store. 
 
 " Narcisse, David's rheumatism is too bad for the 
 Albany trail; you'll have to take the dogs through 
 alone. I don't think the old man will be good for 
 many hard winter trails again," said the factor, clos- 
 ing the mail-bag and handing it to Narcisse. 
 
 " It looks like dirty weather. You'd better take 
 two weeks' rations. You'll likely run into a north- 
 wester." 
 
 Narcisse lashed the provision-bags, tent, and blan- 
 
198 TOILERS OF THE TRAILS 
 
 kets on the light sled, with whitefish for the dogs, and, 
 shaking hands with the factor, shouted a " Bo'-jo'! " 
 to the post people. Cracking his long dog-whip, he 
 turned the team down into the river trail and was off 
 on a swinging trot. 
 
 Except for the position of honor that he now held 
 in the service of the Hudson's Bay Company, as head 
 Company man at Fort Matagami, time had made 
 little change. The best bowman on the English and 
 lower Albany River, and a hardened dog-runner, he 
 had long been indispensable to the great Company. 
 Having no family of his own, he sat, when at the 
 post, in the cabin of old David, while the children of 
 David's children crawled over him, and he shared 
 David's tepee when they trapped together during the 
 months the Company's service did not require them. 
 Long since he had put from his heart the hope of find- 
 ing the man who had deserted his wife and child, for 
 the news had come to Albany years before that the 
 Frenchman, " Black Jack " Lablanche, had been 
 drowned in the Montreal River near Lake Timiskim- 
 ing, far to the southeast toward the settlements. 
 
 Cracking his whip at the lead-dog's ears, he swung 
 down the hard sled-trail of the English River, with 
 pleasant anticipation of a few days at Albany with 
 his old friend, Pere Bisant, of the Oblat Mission. 
 
 Behind him fled the white miles, for his dogs were 
 fast. At times, where the wind had beaten the snow 
 from the ice, he rode on the sled, urging on the too 
 willing huskies, who were as keen for the trail as a 
 thoroughbred for the thrill of the race. 
 
QUEST OF NARCISSE LABLANCHE 199 
 
 On the third day out of Matagami the Albany 
 packet ran into the blizzard. Through the afternoon, 
 before the snow had made deep enough for the drive 
 and swirl of the northwester to block the trail with 
 drifts, Narcisse forced the dogs, head on, into it. 
 Then, when the fierce cold froze the powdery flakes 
 into a needle-pointed scourge which beat blood from 
 the faces of man and dogs, and the team, refusing to 
 face the torture longer, swung round in their traces 
 with thick-coated backs to the torment, Narcisse gave 
 up and made camp in the spruce timber of the shore 
 where he waited for the withering wind to spend its 
 fury. 
 
 One afternoon, days later, the Albany mail was 
 jingling again into the north, now floundering through 
 white ridges, shoulder-high, now racing over the icy 
 shell of the river, swept naked of snow by the un- 
 leashed wind. For some time the dogs had been 
 slowly making their way behind their master, who 
 broke trail through a long stretch of new snow. 
 Suddenly the lead-dog threw up his muzzle and 
 sniffed, then yelped. This action was followed by 
 the dogs behind. 
 
 Narcisse turned, looking in the direction of their 
 pointed noses. No tepee smoke of storm-bound trav- 
 eller rose above the silent spruce forest. The dogs 
 had caught the scent of some animal on the near 
 shore, and were excited. There might be moose or 
 caribou in there stalled by the blizzard. The thought 
 of fresh meat spurred him. 
 
 Unlashing his rifle in its skin case from the sled, 
 
200 TOILERS OF THE TRAILS 
 
 he drove the team to the shore and, much against 
 their protest, tied them with their traces to trees. 
 In the deep, soft snow they would only hinder his 
 hunting. Then he circled far back up-wind, hoping 
 to strike a fresh trail. But the snow lay unmarked as 
 the storm had left it, except by the tracks of furred 
 creatures, who, on the previous night, had sought to 
 break a three days' fast. 
 
 Narcisse had reached the river shore again, 
 above his team, and was approaching, when their 
 excited yelping broke out anew. He hurried to 
 them and loosed their traces. On being freed 
 the lead-dog at once ran down the shore a few 
 hundred yards, followed by his mates, and dis- 
 appeared in the spruce, where the yelping began 
 again. 
 
 The curiosity of Narcisse was aroused. They had 
 found something in that silent forest that had escaped 
 him. Following their trail into the thick timber, he 
 discovered them scratching at a tepee half buried in 
 the snow. Out of a drift near the tent stuck the end 
 of a sled and the webbed toe of a snow-shoe. All 
 other signs of human habitation were obliterated by 
 the snow. 
 
 With the shoe Narcisse hurriedh'^ shovelled down to 
 the tent-opening, knowing too well what horror might 
 lie within. Tearing open the frozen caribou-skin 
 flap, he peered inside. There, muffled in blankets, lay 
 a body beside the dead embers of a fire. Scattered 
 about with cooking-utensils were fragments of bones, 
 which had been broken and boiled for their marrow. 
 
QUEST OF NARCISSE LABLANCHE 201 
 
 It was a starvation camp on which he had stumbled, 
 and not the first. 
 
 Crawling into the tepee, Narcisse turned back the 
 blankets from the huddled body. A mat of long gray 
 hair and beard obscured the sunken features of an old 
 half-breed. Hurriedly he examined the body for 
 signs of life. Detecting a faint flutter of the heart, 
 the Company man vigorously set to work in a struggle 
 with the white death for the life of the man he had 
 found. 
 
 Bringing up his sled, he soon had a fire going under 
 kettles of tea and pemican. Then he started in to 
 rub the circulation back into the shrivelled limbs of 
 the old breed. Soon he could distinguish the faint 
 beating of the heart, and redoubled his efforts. For 
 an hour Narcisse battled for the life that he barely 
 held from snuffing out, by a hair. At length the quiv- 
 ering of sunken eyelids told him he would win. When 
 he was able to get the half-conscious man to swallow 
 some hot tea, the fight was over. 
 
 Late that night the stricken one opened his eyes and 
 muttered a few words in Cree, then sank into a peace- 
 ful sleep. With the aid of the life-giving tea and 
 steaming soup, Narcisse had conquered starvation and 
 the white death. 
 
 For days the packet camped in the spruce, while the 
 starved man was gaining sufficient strength to ride on 
 the sled to Albany. Anxious as he was to reach the 
 fort and his friends there, Lablanche patiently nursed 
 the old man without regret at the delay, for of the 
 unwritten laws of the north none is more rigidly ob- 
 
202 TOILERS OF THE TRAILS 
 
 served than that commanding the succor of those 
 worsted by the relentless hand of nature. From 
 Labrador to Bering Sea, while there is game for the 
 kettle or bannocks for the pan, to ask is to be fed. 
 
 Gradually the old Indian regained his strength and 
 began to talk. He said he had been trapping alone 
 on the headwaters of a small river. Some time back 
 the scarcity of game had wiped out his provisions to 
 such an extent that he had started for Albany. On 
 the way down-stream to the Albany River he had 
 fallen and hurt his leg. This had prevented him from 
 travelling, and he had been forced to eat his dogs. 
 The last dog went before the blizzard. He was a 
 French-Cree with relations who traded at Albany, 
 but no living family. Starvation had completed what 
 the strain of winter trail and summer portage had left 
 of life and strength in his aged frame. 
 
 At length the old man was strong enough to ride 
 on the sled, on which Narcisse had fashioned a cariole 
 body of wooden strips lashed with caribou hide, taken 
 from the sled of the Indian. 
 
 So one January afternoon, at dusk, the Matagami 
 winter mail jingled up to the trade-house at Fort Al- 
 bany with its human freight. Narcisse drove his 
 team at once to the Oblat Mission below the post to 
 turn over the invalid to his friend, P^re Bisant. 
 
 At the door of the mission stood the bearded priest 
 awaiting them. 
 
 " My son, it gladdens my heart to see you," cried 
 the father in Cree, gripping Narcisse's hand. " We 
 
QUEST OF NARCISSE LABLANCHE 203 
 
 feared for you when the northwester struck in. A 
 dog-team was to go up-river to look for you in a day 
 or two. But what have you here? " the priest asked, 
 peering into the dusk at the blanketed form on the 
 sled. 
 
 " Old Indian, starved out, father," replied the 
 courier. " He was too weak to travel." Then under 
 his breath: " He is a very old man, and I think will 
 take the long trail soon." 
 
 " Take him into the hospital, my son; we have two 
 there who were brought in yesterday." 
 
 Narcisse unlashed his passenger and carried him 
 into the log hospital of the Oblat Mission, where two 
 lay brothers took the old man and placed him in a 
 bimk by the roaring stove. 
 
 Then the voice of Pere Bisant called Lablanche to 
 the priest's private room. 
 
 " Come to me, my son, that I may look at your face 
 in the light. It is indeed good to see j^ou again, 
 straight and strong as ever. It is many moons since 
 you were at Albany." He spoke in Cree. 
 
 " Yes, father, and your face shows much worry for 
 your children, while the snow falls thick upon your 
 brow." 
 
 " My cares are many. The winter has been lean 
 for my people, and word has come that already there 
 are many starvation camps on the Elkwan. But, 
 come, let us look to your man; what is his name? " 
 
 " He told me his French name was Joe Brazeau," 
 said Narcisse, following Pere Bisant into the bunk- 
 room. 
 
204 TOILERS OF THE TRAILS 
 
 The old man lay asleep where the light from a large 
 lantern fell full on his face. Seating himself on the 
 cot, the priest pushed back the tangled gray hair 
 from the emaciated features. He looked long 
 at the famine-pinched face. Presently he turned 
 as if to speak to Lablanche, who stood with back 
 toward him warming his hands at the stove. For 
 a moment Pere Bisant sat deep in thought, then he 
 hurriedly exposed the neck of the sleeping man. 
 A long scar crossed the left collar-bone. Again 
 the priest carefully examined the face before 
 him. 
 
 " Come! " he commanded, rising and moving to the 
 door, his dark eyes strangely bright. When they were 
 alone in the priest's room, Pere Bisant took the as- 
 tonished Lablanche into his arms. " My son," he 
 cried, " at last my prayers are answered. You have 
 put the demon from your heart." 
 
 The half-breed held the priest at arm's length. 
 
 " What words do you spik, father? " 
 
 " Mock me not, my son. I have loved you since I 
 taught you as a child here at Albany. And when you 
 Avent into the north, seeking one you would destroy, 
 it grieved me much. But now " 
 
 "By Gar! What you say?" The perplexed 
 Narcisse trembled with a great fear that suddenly 
 swept him. 
 
 It was the priest's turn to be amazed. " Do you 
 not know? " he asked. 
 
 " Oh, no ! No ! " groaned the one to whom the light 
 was coming as a knife comes to the breast. " Dat ole 
 
QUEST OF NARCISSE LABLANCHE 205 
 
 man in dere, eet ees not he. He were drown' long ago, 
 long ago. No! No! Eet ees not he! " 
 
 Narcisse buried his face on the priest's shoulder. 
 
 A great disappointment made heavy the heart of 
 Pere Bisant as he sighed: "And you did not know, my 
 son, who this man was? " 
 
 " I nevaire see heem but one tam in all dese year I 
 hunt for heem." 
 
 As he finished, Narcisse strode to the room where 
 the man he had saved slept. Fearing his intentions, 
 the priest followed. With face picturing the hate that 
 was in his breast, the half-breed stood with clenched 
 hands menacing the man who had left his wife and 
 child to a wilderness death that he might live. Then 
 the priest led him away. 
 
 Late that night they sat and talked — the priest and 
 the victim of fate's irony. The good medicine of this 
 kindly physician of souls was working its cure at last. 
 The wound in the heart of the sufferer, open and raw 
 for years, had begun to heal. 
 
 As they parted the priest said: " Remember, my 
 son, she once loved you both. She would have it as 
 it is. From the Happy Valley where she looks out 
 to-night, she sees you together here, and is glad. 
 Yes, she would have it so." 
 
 Long alone sat Narcisse after his friend left him. 
 Many and far trails he travelled in memory; from a 
 lone tepee on the Drowning River, north up the east 
 coast, where the white lights veil the stars; south to 
 
206 TOILERS OF THE TRAILS 
 
 the iron rails; west where the sun sets in the great 
 barrens. Over these his fancy hurried him by phan- 
 tom dog-team and canoe, always seeking one who 
 eluded him. Again he lived through the torture of 
 those goalless years as he pursued his quest. Twice 
 in the night, when the old hate momentarily mastered 
 the growing peace in his heart, he went to the bedside 
 of the man he had sworn to kill. Twice the last words 
 of the Oblat father sent him back to his vigil in the 
 other room. 
 
 At last the vision of one in the Happy Valley 
 conquered the bitterness. Rising, he went to the 
 sleeping man. Stretching forth his arms, with eyes 
 that beheld a mother and child in snow-enveloped 
 tepee on a desolate river shore, deserted, he groaned: 
 
 " Maybe de good pere spiks true. She would have 
 eet so." 
 
THE LAND OF HIS FATHERS 
 
THE LAND OF HIS FATHERS 
 
 "De map lie!" 
 
 The old Ojibway turned from the slab counter of 
 the trade-house at Jackfish Lake, a lean forefinger 
 still resting on the engineer's map of a section of the 
 preliminary survey for the new Transcontinental 
 Railroad. There was a glitter in his black eyes as 
 they met the surprised gaze of McDuff, the Scotch 
 engineer. 
 
 " What d'you mean, David? " queried Cameron, 
 the factor, peering over the Ojibway's shoulder at the 
 map spread before them. 
 
 " All dees lak'," replied the old Indian, pointing to 
 a chain of lakes along the shores of which ran a trial 
 line for the contemplated Right-of-Way, " lie two — 
 tree day travel to de sunset from de Flaming Riviere. 
 Dey not flow dees way; beeg heel shut dat valley from 
 de riviere." The speaker indicated with his finger. 
 
 " De man who mak' map; I know how he travel," 
 the Ojibway continued. "De freezing moon was 
 near; he was starve an' in great hurry, an' he listen to 
 half-breed. He mak' bad map, for de half-breed lie," 
 
 The Indian drew a long breath as his narrowed 
 eyes bored into the engineer's questioning gaze. 
 
 " You know this country pretty well, David? " 
 
 The Ojibway straightened to his full six feet. A 
 
 209 
 
210 TOILERS OF THE TRAILS 
 
 flicker of a smile played at the corners of his set 
 mouth. 
 
 " Many snows I hmit dat country. My fader hunt 
 dat country, an' hees fader, I know eet lak' I know 
 my tepee out dere on de lak' shore." 
 
 " There ain't a lake or hill in the Kabenakagami 
 country that David don't know," broke in the factor. 
 " He was born there and his ancestors were born there 
 and hunted it. You can depend on what David tells 
 you about the Kabenakagami and Flaming River 
 country." 
 
 The eyes of the old Ojibway softened. 
 
 " Well, the man who made this flying survey knows 
 his business," grunted McDuff to John Gordon, his 
 assistant, " but if he was close to the freeze-up and 
 had to get out in a hurry, he may have guessed at these 
 lakes flowing into the Flaming River, when he worked 
 up his notes with the topographer. The Agricultural 
 Survey sure made a mess of their western Ontario 
 map, but they hardly made a compass survey and 
 plotted a great deal by hearsay." 
 
 "I should say so," nodded Cameron; "the man 
 who follows the Nepigon Trail to the Albany with 
 that map will sure leave his bones in the bush. It 
 don't show half the network of lakes you travel 
 through, and water running two ways out of 'em at 
 that." 
 
 The government engineer turned to old David, who 
 had been an interested listener. 
 
 " David, I want you and your sons as guides until 
 the freeze-up. Will you come with us? " 
 
THE LAND OF HIS FATHERS 211 
 
 " To-morrow I tell you." And the erect figure of 
 the treaty-chief of the Kabenakagami Ojibways dis- 
 appeared through the door. 
 
 Later McDuff and Gordon sat smoking after-sup- 
 per pipes in the factor's quarters. 
 
 " There's no doubt in your mind, Cameron, that 
 old David is the best man you've got for our busi- 
 ness? " asked McDuff. 
 
 " There are others trading at this post who trap 
 the Kabenakagami country above and below David's 
 hvmting-grounds, but if your map is correct the pre- 
 liminary survey runs through the country he has 
 travelled all his hf e. He's the man you want and he's 
 the most intelligent Indian that trades at this post. 
 That's why he's treaty-chief." 
 
 " I guess you're right, but it don't seem possible 
 that Stevens could have made such a bull on the 
 Flaming River survey. Why, it may mean nmning 
 a new line thirty or forty mUes." 
 
 " I don't care," maintained the factor. " If David 
 says your map is off, you can gamble your life that it 
 is." 
 
 " Well, we've got to go and find out." 
 
 Down on the lake shore across the post clearing 
 where already stood scattered tepees of Ojibways in 
 for the spring trade, the occasional laugh of an Indian 
 girl or yelp of a husky dog alone broke the hush of 
 the Jime twilight. Each day, now, from north and 
 cast and west, would bring to the post the canoes of 
 fur-hunters, freighted with noisy cargoes of children 
 
212 TOILERS OF THE TRAILS 
 
 and dogs, and the winter catch of pelts. Soon the 
 trade-house would swarm with swarthy trappers, red- 
 man and half-breed, bartering fox and mink, lynx and 
 otter, for powder, flour, and cloth, or lounging about, 
 smoking Company niggerhead as they gossiped of 
 winter camps and winter trails in the silent places. 
 
 Beyond the tepees, where the cleared groimd rose 
 to a miniature sand-cliff above the lake, sat a motion- 
 less figure silhouetted against the waning western 
 light. Throughout the hours of the long twilight he 
 had been there, as if carved from stone, chin in hands, 
 gazing across the sleeping lake to purple western 
 ridges. But his eyes had not seen the timbered hiUs 
 of Jackfish, for they looked on a green, northern 
 valley, where swift streams sang through forests of 
 spruce and birch and fir, seeking lakes shimmering in 
 the sun. 
 
 It was a valley that had been the hunting-ground 
 of his father and his father's father. For generations, 
 by the law of the north, it had belonged to the family 
 of the Makwa — the bear. For forty miles none but 
 the Makwa trapped its ridges and streams or netted 
 its fish-filled lakes. In the Ojibway tongue it was 
 called Gwanatch Tawadina, The Beautiful Valley, 
 and there David had been born, and as a boy first 
 learned to snare the ptarmigan and snow-shoe rabbit, 
 and later hunt the moose and caribou. In the outlet 
 of these lakes his father had taught him the art of run- 
 ning the white-water and poling the swift current in 
 a birch-bark. There, as a child, he had lain when the 
 camp was asleep, gazing in awe and wonder at the 
 
THE LAND OF HIS FATHERS 213 
 
 myriad stars while he listened to the voices of the 
 forest night. Not a spruce ridge, or swift brook, or 
 wild meadow, with its dead water above the beaver 
 dam where the moose came at smiset to eat the roots of 
 lilies and the sweet grasses, but was a loved and fa- 
 miliar sight to the one who brooded in the dusk. 
 
 From the largest of the lakes of The Beautiful 
 Valley, called the Lake of the Islands, lifted sheer a 
 rocky mass crowned by a forest of ancient spruce and 
 jack-pine. There for generations had the dead of 
 his family found their long rest. There lay the 
 mother of his tall sons, his father and father's father 
 with their kinsmen, sleeping the endless sleep beneath 
 the murmuring jack-pines and spruce of the Island 
 of the Dead, the sacred ground of the ]Makwa. 
 
 The last light in the west had long since died. 
 Deep the lake slept at his feet, mirroring the stars. 
 Down among the tepees the voices of the women were 
 hushed. From the opposite shore drifted the hoo- 
 hoo, hoo-hoo, of a gray owl. But the lone figure 
 on the cliff kept vigil far into the night with his 
 vision. 
 
 At sunrise the government engineers with their as- 
 sistants, canoemen, and packers, started north for the 
 summer survey of the Kabenakagami section of the 
 Transcontinental. In the bow of the big birch-bark 
 carrying McDuff and young Gordon paddled the 
 grizzled treaty-chief of the Kabenakagami Ojibways, 
 David IVIakwa. A hundred miles north, doAvn river 
 to Stevens's flying survey, then months of line run- 
 ning east and west, seeking an easier grade among the 
 
214 TOILERS OF THE TRAILS 
 
 hills, around the swamps and along the wild rivers of 
 the intractable wilderness, awaited them. 
 
 All summer McDuff and Gordon with their chain- 
 men and voyageurs, red, half-breed, and white, toiled 
 in the Ontario " bush," tormented by the forest pests, 
 the midge, black fly, and bulldog; at times, when the 
 packers failed to bring up their supplies, living on the 
 fish and game of the country, in order that some day 
 the deep voice of the Iron Horse might thunder 
 through the solitudes of the Ontario hills. 
 
 Late in August, the trial lines having been run east 
 to the Missinaibi section, the survey-party returned to 
 its base cache on the Kabenakagami and pushed west. 
 Here, in circling ridges and horsebacks, dodging 
 lakes and bottomless muskeg, the skill of that old 
 wheel-horse of the Transcontinental staff, Donald Mc- 
 Duff, was taxed to the limit to find a better grade than 
 that shown by Stevens's trial line, or even maintain 
 the required seventy-three feet per mile. 
 
 In the arduous toil of the past weeks the woodcraft 
 and ability as a canoeman of old David had received 
 the acid test at the hands of the gruff Scotch engineer, 
 ruthless in the treatment of his men in the pursuit of 
 his end and aim. And so great was the respect with 
 whieh the old Indian came to be held that he started 
 west from the big river as head man of the voy- 
 ageurs. 
 
 In September the survey reached the Flaming 
 River, having found no glaring mistake in Stevens's 
 lines. Here, to the west, paralleling the stream, a suc- 
 cession of high ridges barred the way, requiring a wide 
 
THE LAND OF HIS FATHERS 215 
 
 bend in the line either north or south, Stevens's line 
 dipped south. 
 
 One evening in his tent, with the help of two lan- 
 terns, the chief engineer and John Gordon were com- 
 paring the Flaming River country on Stevens's map 
 with those of the Agricultural and the Geological 
 Survey. 
 
 " Well, I guess there's something in what that In- 
 jun says about this proposition, Gordon," rasped out 
 McDuff at last. " This country west seems all cut 
 up with small lakes and if the Geological survey 
 wasn't made by blind men, it's some rough." 
 
 " Compare these lakes off here to the southwest on 
 Stevens's survey with this map," said Gordon, point- 
 ing with sinewy finger. " They don't look much 
 alike, do they? David told me to-day," he continued, 
 " that we couldn't find a break in this ridge to the 
 south for twenty miles. He says it turns and dips 
 southwest." 
 
 " If that's so, Stevens made a bad guess then," 
 growled McDuff. 
 
 " I got to the top of it yesterday with one of David's 
 boys," went on Gordon, " and the glasses showed 
 nothing but rolling horsebacks. I'm satisfied we 
 must swing north past this big shoulder." 
 
 " Call David! " commanded McDuff. 
 
 Shortly the old Indian entered the tent. 
 
 " Mr. Gordon tells me that you've been clear to the 
 headwater lakes of this river and that the ridge over 
 there holds without a break for twenty miles?" 
 queried McDuff. 
 
216 TOILERS OF THE TRAILS 
 
 David looked the engineer steadily in the eyes. 
 
 " Dees heel run many mile' to de scut', den turn 
 wes'. You get no trail tru flat country for day 
 travel. To de nord you get 'round een leetle 
 piece." 
 
 " You say that the outlet of these lakes rims north- 
 west and don't flow east into the Flaming. This map 
 says it does. Are you lying or telling the truth? " 
 
 At the insult the Indian's breath quickened. His 
 hands clinched convulsively as he faced the factor, but 
 choking down his anger, he answered: 
 
 "Dees lak' run far nordwes' many day travel. 
 Dees map ees bad map ! " The veins stood out like 
 whip-cords on the old man's temples and neck. His 
 dark eyes blazed defiantly into those of the engineer 
 as he hissed: 
 
 "Eetlie!" 
 
 "Well, maybe it does; maybe it does; we'll see 
 soon enough." 
 
 The Indian's resentment was lost on the thick- 
 skinned McDuff, who turned to the map before him, 
 but there flashed through the brain of Gordon the im- 
 pression that something more than the error of a sur- 
 veying-party lay behind old David's vehemence. At 
 Jackfish he had turned like a trapped wolverine to 
 utter in that tragic manner the same words: " Eet 
 lie!" 
 
 There was something behind all this, but what it 
 was he could not guess. 
 
 Again David assured McDuff that he had been the 
 length of the Flaming and only to the north could 
 
THE LAND OF HIS FATHERS 217 
 
 they maintain the required grade for the road. When 
 he had gone INIcDuff turned to Gordon. 
 
 "Well, I'm stumped. Stevens gets through this 
 ridge not ten miles above here and he don't have to dig 
 much either, if his altitudes are right, and David, who 
 is about the best bushman I've ever knocked into, 
 swears it's north, not south, we've got to swing. 
 
 " To-morrow," he continued, " you take David and 
 an outfit and go up-river a week and see what you can 
 find. I'll swing north. I'm inclined to think that 
 we've stumbled upon the first bad blunder Stevens 
 ever made. He was in here when the country was 
 freezing up, and starved out in the bargain. That 
 may accoimt for it." 
 
 While the engineers still argued the pros and cons 
 of the problem before them, a swarthy face appeared 
 in the tent-opening. 
 
 " Meester MeecDuff, I wesh to spik somet'ing wid 
 you," was whispered. 
 
 It was one of the half-breed voyageurs. 
 
 " Well, what d'you want? Haven't I ordered you 
 to keep away from this tent? If you've got any 
 kick to make, take it up with David. He's your 
 boss!" 
 
 The half-breed waited until McDuff finished, his 
 beady eyes wandering from the maps on the rough 
 slab table to the faces of the white men; then he said 
 in a low, insinuating tone: 
 
 " Eet ees about Daveed dat I spik. He lie to you. 
 Dees bed over dere," waving his hand to the west, 
 " a beeg river come tru, a day polin' up de Flamin'. 
 
218 TOILERS OF THE TRAILS 
 
 I have travel to de headwater. I know dees coun- 
 tree." 
 
 McDuff looked at Gordon. Over John Gordon 
 swept a sense of disappointment — of regret. If the 
 half-breed's tale was true, David, whom he trusted, 
 whom he had made his friend in the strenuous weeks 
 behind them, was deceiving them. If the tale was 
 true, the Indian surely had a powerful reason for 
 insisting that the location of the road must swing 
 north. 
 
 That the old Indian with whom he was accustomed 
 often at night to talk in Ojibway of the life and folk- 
 lore of his people, whom he had found the whitest 
 Indian he had ever known, should lie to them, was in- 
 credible. And yet — there were suspicious circum- 
 stances. 
 
 " You say that a river breaks through the ridge a 
 few miles above here? " asked McDuff. 
 
 " Oua, yes? To-day I hear you have talk wid 
 Daveed an' I cum to tell you he lie." 
 
 The half-breed seemed nervous. He turned to the 
 tent-door and peered out into the darkness, then 
 waited for McDuff's reply. 
 
 " When were you on this river? " 
 
 " Four — five year back. I come up here from the 
 Kabenakagami for to hunt fur." 
 
 " Um-m." The Scotchman scratched his bearded 
 jaw. "All right, Jean! We'll soon know who's 
 wrong. That's all — ^get out ! " The engineer pointed 
 to the tent-opening. 
 
 As the half-breed left, a dark form noiselessly arose 
 
THE LAND OF HIS FATHERS 219 
 
 near the rear wall of the tent and was swallowed in 
 the gloom. 
 
 " Well, what do you think of that for half-breed 
 jealousy of the Injun boss, or " 
 
 The silence of the night was broken by the sound of 
 trampling in the brush down near the tents of the voy- 
 ageurs, followed by an oath and rapid talk in the 
 Ojibway tongue. 
 
 The two engineers hurried outside, but the camp 
 of their men seemed hushed in slumber. 
 
 " There was somebody in the bush out there just 
 now. Hello, down there ! " McDuff bellowed. 
 " What's all that noise about? " 
 
 Shortly one of the white chain-men appeared. 
 
 " What are y' having down there, Andrew, a 
 row? " 
 
 " All quiet, sir, now! There was a little noise over 
 near the Injun's tents, but no trouble. Somebody 
 yellin' in his sleep, I looked in and they all had their 
 heads under the blankets." 
 
 " All right, turn in, then; but I won't have any 
 rows in this camp, imderstand? Report anything 
 you see ! " 
 
 " Yes, sir," and the sleepy chain-man returned to 
 his blankets. ^ 
 
 Next morning, when the returning supply-boats 
 started back down-river for the Kabenakagami, the 
 half-breed voyageur, Jean Nadeau, reported sick and 
 asked to be sent home. Although he showed no signs 
 of illness, he was allowed to go. 
 
 " Looks to me, Gordon," laughed McDuff, as the 
 
220 TOILERS OF THE TRAILS 
 
 canoes pulled out, "as if that half-breed who knows 
 so much about this country got cold feet, I guess he 
 wanted to rub it into David, and then lost his nerve." 
 
 The same day, with David and an Indian crew, 
 Gordon started up-stream to reconnoitre the country, 
 while his chief followed the ridge to the north on a 
 flying survey. 
 
 Towering in the bow of Gordon's big Peterboro 
 canoe old David piloted the craft up the quick-water 
 of the swift river with a skill that only those born to 
 the game possess. As they slowly bucked the current, 
 driven by the setting-poles of David and the five voy- 
 ageurs, Gordon's eager eyes followed the great ridge 
 to the west searching for the opening that might mean 
 a way through for the line. But in the middle of 
 the morning, when he landed below a long stretch of 
 white- water to get a better view-point for observation, 
 it still loomed far to the south, hemming in the river. 
 
 " Can you pole this rapid, David? " asked Gordon. 
 
 " I pole it in small canoe, in dees boat, maybe." 
 
 " Those shores look pretty rough; where's the 
 Indian portage? " 
 
 " Injun portage all dees water 'cross leetle lak'. 
 You no see hill from de portage." 
 
 " I don't want to lose sight of that ridge. If you 
 can pole it, go ahead." 
 
 There was murmuring and shaking of heads among 
 the crew, but a few words in O jib way from David 
 served to reassure them, and he turned the nose of the 
 canoe into the boilers below the white-water. 
 
 Up the first chute slowly moved the boat driven by 
 
O 
 
 O 
 
 H 
 
 e3 
 
 o 
 
 E-i 
 
 I 
 IB 
 
 M 
 
 
THE LAND OF HIS FATHERS 221 
 
 the poles of the iron-backed crew — the voice of the 
 tall bowman rising high above the roar of the waters 
 that flung them back. Now they hugged the shore, 
 where ran a deep channel, now shot across current, 
 seeking a way through between ugly ledges white with 
 foam, huge boulders over which piled high the racing 
 torrent, and pinnacle rocks which thrust upward sharp 
 teeth that could slash the bottom of the boat into rib- 
 bons. Here, skirting destruction to canoe and sup- 
 plies by a hair, dodging an upset there by the breadth 
 of a hand, up the rapids the voyageurs fought their 
 way, throwing their weight onto the long spruce poles 
 at the command of the bowman. 
 
 They had not got far into the long white-water 
 when John Gordon regretted having made the at- 
 tempt. His supplies and canoe were too valuable to 
 be recklessly imperilled. 
 
 " I think we'd better get out of this, David, and 
 carry around," he shouted. 
 
 " Up dere a piece we can land," replied David, 
 leaning on his pole. 
 
 Again at his signal the crew thrust the boat for- 
 ward, sometimes gaining feet, sometimes inches, on 
 the weight of hurrying water. Then, as the bowman 
 pried the nose of the craft off the current to avoid a 
 rock, his pole snapped in his hands. Unable to re- 
 cover his balance, he plunged head first into the rapids, 
 while the canoe swung broadside on. 
 
 Before the crew behind regained control of the boat 
 it was lifted and dropped on a jagged ledge; while, 
 tossed and buffeted by eddies and cross-currents, the 
 
222 TOILERS OF THE TRAILS 
 
 Indian was swept below them, his arms clasped about 
 his head, as a protection from the rocks. 
 
 Frantically the crew struggled with their poles, 
 finally swinging the canoe off the ledge, then swiftly 
 snubbed down-stream on the road they had come and 
 landed half full of water below the rapids. 
 
 There on the shore stood David wringing out his 
 clothes. 
 
 " Dees rapeed no good for beeg boat," he volim- 
 teered to Gordon. 
 
 " Are you hurt, David? " 
 
 " Naw, not one leetle rock bite me." 
 
 The bottom of the canoe was badly slashed and 
 most of the flour wet. The flying survey must be 
 made without delay. No excuses were accepted by 
 McDuff. 
 
 " Patch her up the best you can and drop back to 
 camp, boys," he told the crew. " David and I will 
 take a few days' grub and strike into the bush. I 
 want to see what the coimtry looks like from that big 
 hill up-river." 
 
 As Gordon spoke the eyes of the old Indian nar- 
 rowed and the muscles of his lean face set hard, but he 
 said nothing. 
 
 That night, miles above the rapids, Gordon and 
 David sat smoking in front of their camp-fire. 
 
 " I thought you knew this river pretty well, 
 David? " Gordon essayed after a long silence. But 
 the Indian smoked on with eyes averted, as if he had 
 not heard the question. 
 
 As they ate their supper, Gordon's mind had been 
 
THE LAND OF HIS FATHERS 223 
 
 full of the events of the last few days. In vain he had 
 struggled to throttle the suspicion which was steadily 
 gaining strength — that this silent old Indian sitting 
 there across the fire was playing a deep and subtle 
 game. But why? 
 
 In the eastern survey lately completed they had 
 camped together many nights on a flying reconnois- 
 sance of the country, as they were then camped. 
 Born in a Hudson's Bay Post where his father was 
 factor, Gordon as a boy had become familiar with the 
 Ojibway tongue, and it was in Ojibway that he talked 
 to David when they were alone. This knowledge of 
 the language of his fathers had been the means of 
 drawing out the proud old Indian as nothing else 
 could have done, and of speedily cementing a warm 
 friendship between white engineer and red voyageur. 
 
 Night after night they had burned much tobacco 
 discussing the ways of the furred prowlers and 
 horned wanderers of the Ontario forests and muskeg. 
 David had spun many a tale of his journeys to the 
 great salt bay of the north where the geese and duck 
 swarm in myriads for the fall migration. Gordon 
 had spent two years in the British Columbian Rockies 
 and his talk of that land of summer snows and gla- 
 ciers, lying far beyond the sunset, enthralled the im- 
 agination of the Indian. But for the most part it had 
 been David who taught and Gordon who listened. 
 The old man's knowledge of woodcraft, his many 
 winter trails with the dog-teams and summer journeys 
 in the boats of the Great Company through the On- 
 tario silent places, his love of the mystic in nature. 
 
224 TOILERS OF THE TRAILS 
 
 had been a source of interest and delight upon which 
 Gordon never ceased to draw. 
 
 And now, as he sat there by the fire, his doubts had 
 at last crystallized into a deep suspicion of his friend. 
 Well, a day or two would tell the story, he mused, and 
 with a " Good-night, David," turned into his blanket. 
 
 It was the afternoon of the next day. They had 
 climbed to a shoulder of the big hUl Gordon had seen 
 far down the river, and sat for a space smoking. 
 North and south at their feet ran the winding valley 
 of the Flaming River. Low hills of spruce and fir 
 splashed with the yellow and gold of birch and poplar 
 rolled to the eastern horizon where the pale blue of 
 the watershed ridges of the Kabenakagami merged in 
 a hazy sky. In places, where silver reaches of river 
 met the yellow birch forests, the stream seemed sud- 
 denly to burst into flame. 
 
 " Now, I know how the river got its name. It 
 looks afire down there, David!" exclaimed Gordon. 
 " It's certainly a rare country." 
 
 " I show you one at sunset," said the old Indian, 
 whose brooding eyes were blind to the beauty of the 
 valley. 
 
 Then something impelled John Gordon to ask: 
 
 " David, why did you take me into that swamp 
 yesterday and lose me? " 
 
 For an instant the Indian did not answer; then, 
 turning, he rested his hand on his friend's knee and 
 said in Ojibway: 
 
 " Because, one sleep ago, the face of the sun was 
 
THE LAND OF HIS FATHERS 225 
 
 hidden, and when it died behind the hills the sky would 
 not hang with the colors of the flowers of the forest 
 over The Beautiful Valley." 
 
 " The Beautiful Valley? " Gordon's eyes widened 
 in wonder. " What do you mean? " 
 
 " My son," continued the old chief, " the country 
 you look upon gladdens your heart, for the great 
 Manitou has given you eyes to see the rivers and the 
 hills. In a little whUe when we stand on the bald 
 head of this mountain above us as the sun dies in the 
 west, you shall behold a land as fair as the Happy 
 Hunting-Grounds that lie at the end of the last trail, 
 for you shall look upon The Beautiful Valley." 
 
 Thrilled at the words, Gordon vaguely sensed what 
 he was about to hear. 
 
 " One sleep ago, if you had been the Big White 
 Boss who has no heart you would now lie in the black 
 swamp down there and no white man would see your 
 face again — for the black swamp keeps its dead. But 
 you have the soul of an Ojibway ; your heart loves the 
 lone lands ; your ears hear the voices of the rapids and 
 the talking wind in the birches. To me you are as a 
 son." 
 
 Held by the tragic face of the Indian, Gordon 
 listened to the dramatic confession. The old man 
 rested his saddened eyes momentarily on the valley, 
 then faced the engineer with a gesture of hopelessness. 
 
 " But it is no good ! Others would come some day 
 and find the break in the hills and bring the Iron 
 Trail to The Beautiful Valley. The white man is 
 strong. It is no good! " 
 
226 TOILERS OF THE TRAILS 
 
 " You mean, David, that you have been trying to 
 keep us out of your hunting-grounds — this valley you 
 call The Beautiful Valley? There is, after all, a 
 break in the hills above here? " 
 
 " Yes, my son; the map does not lie." 
 
 For (Jordon the situation had cleared. 
 
 " I thought yesterday when you led me into that 
 swamp — that you were trying to lose me," Gordon 
 said, half to himself. Then he reached out impvd- 
 sively and gripped the hand of the heart-broken old 
 man. 
 
 " David, you know we are sent here by the govern- 
 ment. We are ordered to find a trail for the road by 
 the Fathers at Ottawa. If we make a bad trail, others 
 will follow and find a good one. If I could — if I 
 could keep the Transcontinental out of your valley, 
 my friend, I would. You know I would do it, don't 
 you? " 
 
 " Yes, you would help me, my son, for you have the 
 soul of an Ojibway. You love the clean waters and 
 the green forests. The burned lands sadden your 
 heart." 
 
 To John Gordon the despair of the old man who 
 stood with averted face to hide the play of emotion 
 on his twisted features was a pitiful sight. 
 
 " You will know when we stand at sunset and look 
 upon The Beautiful Valley, why David, a chief, has 
 lied to the White Boss that the Iron Trail might not 
 come to the land of the Makwa." 
 
 For a time the two sat in silence, then Gordon 
 asked: 
 
THE LAND OF HIS FATHERS 227 
 
 " You scared that half-breed Nadeau into going 
 back with the supply -boats? " 
 
 " Yes, he knew this river. I followed him to your 
 tent and heard what he said. Then I told him to go 
 back with the supply-boats, for he fears the Makwa." 
 
 " And you broke your pole in the rapids and risked 
 drowning yourself to keep us from finding the break 
 in the hills?" 
 
 " Yes, but it was no good, no good ! " 
 
 " Will McDuff find an easy grade through to the 
 north? " 
 
 " No, there are many hills there and high ; they must 
 come this way after all." 
 
 " David, my friend, if there was a good way north, 
 I'd try to help you. But other engineers follow us 
 this winter on the snow. We are only a flying sur- 
 vey. They are sure to find the easy grade through the 
 hills above here." 
 
 " Yes," assented the old man sorrowfully, " the 
 white man is strong; he will find The Beautiful 
 Valley." 
 
 At sunset they climbed to the bald brow of the 
 
 mountain. Gordon followed his guide up out of the 
 
 thick scrub to the rock face of the summit and stood 
 
 thrilled at the panorama rolling away for forty miles 
 
 to the west. 
 
 With a sweep of his long arm, David said proudly: 
 
 " Look, my son, upon The Beautiful Valley." 
 
 Flanked by high ridges to the north and south, the 
 
 lower levels broken with undulating hills of jack-pine, 
 
228 TOILERS OF THE TRAILS 
 
 spruce, and fir shot with the maroon and gold of the 
 hardwood, the hunting-ground of the Makwa faded 
 far into the sunset. Here and there — ^like silver 
 islands studding the sea of endless forest — shimmered 
 a hundred lakes. And out of the nearest of these the 
 bright thread of a river, now lost in emerald depths, 
 now emerging, flashed off to the southeast. 
 
 Far at the head of the valley loomed a range of 
 purple hills, over which in wondrous hues the simken 
 sun painted the canvas of the sky with magic brush. 
 Not a blemish of burned country or barren marred the 
 perfect whole. 
 
 Long the enchanted Gordon drank in the beauty 
 of the picture. 
 
 " God, what a country! " he finally sighed. 
 
 " You know now why David lied? " wistfully the 
 old man asked. 
 
 " Yes, I don't wonder you fought for it." 
 
 Then as the two watched the deepening splendor of 
 the sunset, the Indian began: 
 
 " Often I have journeyed to the south in the boats 
 of the Great Company. Once, many long snows ago, 
 far by the Big Sweet Water I saw white men, like 
 ants, cutting a wide trail through the living forests. 
 Again, when the mail-canoe went south we met the 
 smoke of forest-fires, so thick that it hid the sun, two 
 sleeps from the great trail. There we found men, as 
 many as there are midges in a swamp, digging holes 
 in the hills like the foxes, and shooting the rocks and 
 ledges with gunpowder, following those who went 
 before. North and south for a day's journey stood 
 
GORDON DRANK IN THE BEAUTT OF THE PICTITRE 
 
THE LAND OF HIS FATHERS 229 
 
 blackened ridges burned by the fires these men had 
 made. Later they laid small trees on the naked earth 
 and over them made a trail of iron that ran into the 
 east, without end. 
 
 " And then one summer we saw the Iron Horse, 
 fed with fire, come out of the east following the Iron 
 Trail. And with the Iron Horse came the free-trad- 
 ers to barter for furs the burning water which the 
 Great Cdmpany would not give the Indians. Here I 
 saw Ojibways sell in one day for this devil-water their 
 winter hunt of fur, while the women wailed in the te- 
 pees where there w^s no tea or flour. The young men, 
 no longer men but slaves to the traders — and not 
 ashamed — begged for the bad medicine that filled 
 their veins with fire and stole their manhood. Here I 
 looked on starvation and misery among my people 
 brought by those who followed the Iron Trail with 
 their camps. 
 
 " All this I saw when I journeyed far south to the 
 Big Sweet Water. 
 
 "When I learned, two long snows ago, that the 
 white man would make another Iron Trail, my heart 
 was saddened. It was in the freezing moon before 
 the last long snows that white men came to The Beau- 
 tiful Valley. I was south at the post when my sons 
 found them, so they gave them their lives." 
 
 On the old man's face was written the torture of his 
 thoughts. Shortly he continued : 
 
 " You have the soul of an Ojibway, and under- 
 stand. Look down there at those forests untouched 
 by fire; those lakes, clean as the springs which feed 
 
230 TOILERS OF THE TRAILS 
 
 them; those hills without a sear. In that big lake far 
 up the valley — we call it the Lake of the Islands — 
 lie the bones of my people. For many, many long 
 snows, since the big battle when we took the country 
 from the Crees, it has been the home of the Makwa, 
 and now the Iron Trail will come through the break 
 in the hills and The Beautiful Valley will vanish. 
 What your eyes see to-night will be hidden by the 
 smoke of the burning forests. The thunder of the 
 white man's powder will echo among its hills and its 
 lakes lie befouled by the camps of the wood-choppers. 
 And later the traders will come and corrupt my young 
 men and women with their poisoned water. 
 
 " But it is no good. I am old and the white men 
 are strong." 
 
 With a gesture of despair David turned his tragic 
 eyes from the land of his fathers and covered his face 
 with his hands. 
 
 Gordon tried to explain how the government had 
 made laws for the building of the new road; how 
 there were to be no forest-fires started by careless 
 workmen; how the whiskey-trader would be banished 
 from the Right-of-Way; but in his heart he knew 
 that David was right. The magic of The Beautiful 
 Valley would vanish at the coming of the Iron Trail. 
 
 Slowly the riot of pagan color faded from the west- 
 em sky, and twilight followed. But not until dusk 
 masked the valley did the watchers on the mountain 
 stir. 
 
 In the middle of October, when the leaves of the 
 
THE LAND OF HIS FATHERS 231 
 
 hardwood yellowed the floor of the forest and the first 
 stinging winds from the north gave warning of the 
 freeze-up, the flying survey through the land of the 
 Makwa was completed. In the last weeks old David 
 had seemed to Gordon, who tried to cheer him, some- 
 what reconciled to the inevitable, but the heart of the 
 proud Ojibway was broken. 
 
 One afternoon the canoes of the party, having run 
 the outlet of the lakes on their way to the break in the 
 hills, were nearing the portage which skirted the steep 
 cliffs of the gorge through which thundered the river. 
 In front, in a sixteen-foot birch-bark, David paddled 
 McDuff. Close behind, Gordon and five voyageurs 
 followed in a Peterboro, with the remaining canoes in 
 their wake. The large boat had already turned into 
 the shore at the head of the rapids, when suddenly the 
 Indian rose to his knees, and calling to Gordon, 
 " Bo'- jo' ! Bb'-jo' ! " paddled like a demon out into 
 midstream. 
 
 Off his guard, McDuff at first took it as an attempt 
 by David to frighten him, but when the grim-visaged 
 Ojibway, heedless of the engineer's shouts to turn in- 
 shore, drove the light canoe into the broken water 
 toward the suck of the first chute, he knew that it was 
 a madman who paddled in the stern. Then, for he 
 was no coward, McDuff plunged into the river, at- 
 tempting to reach a ledge jutting from the shore. 
 But, though he fought desperately, the swimmer, to- 
 gether with the canoe, was swept into the flume. 
 
 Stunned by the swiftness of the tragedy moving 
 before his eyes, Gordon fancied he saw, as the canoe 
 
232 TOILERS OF THE TRAILS 
 
 took the plunge, a smile light the swarthy face turned 
 toward him and a hand raised in farewell as the 
 doomed craft was sucked into the riot of wild water. 
 
 Far down the break in the hills they found the bat- 
 tered bodies of the drowned engineer and the Ojib- 
 way. As Gordon lifted the broken clay and looked 
 at the face of the old chief, he knew that it had been a 
 smile of triumph his fancy pictured lighting the dark 
 features in that last look back at his friend. For 
 from the face of David sorrow and despair had van- 
 ished, and in their place, was peace. 
 
 While the rest of the survey continued on down the 
 Flaming River with the body of the chief engineer, 
 Gordon, with David's sons, brought the old chief up 
 the valley to the Lake of the Islands. There, on the 
 Island of the Dead, they laid him beside his fore- 
 fathers for his long sleep beneath the talking pines 
 he loved. 
 
 Gordon stood by the grave at the head of which 
 they had erected a cross of hewn spruce, and repeated 
 what he could remember of the burial service. Then, 
 in personal tribute to his friend, the engineer cut in 
 the white wood of the arm these words, in English: 
 
 Heeb lies David Makwa^ Ojibwat Ohibp^ who, 
 
 RATHER THAN LIVE TO SEE THE IkON TRAIL DESE- 
 CEATE HIS BbATTTIPUL VALIiEY — CHOSE DEATH, 
 
THE HIGH BROTHERHOOB 
 
THE HIGH BROTHERHOOD 
 
 From the shoulder of a scrub-covered bluff which 
 overhung the valley, the half-breed w^atched the far 
 flash of a setting-pole wielded by a canoeman battling 
 slowly up the swift wilderness river. The eyes of the 
 breed narrowed, while the muscles of his lean face set 
 hard as he followed the progress of the craft, marked 
 solely by the play of sunlight on the dripping pole. 
 
 So they were still on his track — these men who had 
 hunted him through the northern summer from Lac 
 St. Jean over the Height-of-Land and deep into the 
 fastnesses of Rupert Land. For a fortnight back he 
 had believed his pursuers distanced, for he knew he 
 had set them a pace into the wide North which but 
 few canoemen had the endurance to follow. Lately 
 he had been leisurely ascending the river, occasionally 
 stopping to hunt and look over the country ; and now, 
 on this day, following his custom before making 
 camp, he had climbed to a point commanding a view 
 of the river behind him to discover to his surprise that 
 the bloodhounds of the law were still hard on his trail. 
 
 Jean Garnier stood as if hewn from the jack-pine 
 against which he leaned while the canoe labored in the 
 quick water a mile down-stream. That there was but 
 
 235 
 
236 TOILERS OF THE TRAILS? 
 
 one man poling, his trained eyes assured him; but 
 what he could not as yet make out was whether the 
 canoe carried a passenger. 
 
 However, that was a small matter; he was at the 
 end of his tether; he would travel no farther. If he 
 were to survive a winter in this country it was high 
 time he built a shack and started smoking and drying 
 a supply of fish and game. He had seen many game- 
 signs in the valley, in fact had been gorging on moose- 
 meat after a summer of semi-starvation and had in- 
 tended to winter on the headwater lakes of the river. 
 And now, here was this canoe ! 
 
 Swiftly the half-breed had arrived at his decision. 
 The coming night should decide whether he were to 
 leave his bones in this lonely valley for the foxes and 
 wolverines to snarl over, or shake off at last the re- 
 lentless pursuit which for three months had driven 
 him ever deeper into the trackless North. 
 
 More than once, in the past summer, he could have 
 emptied a canoe of his enemies by a few well-aimed 
 shots as he lay hidden on the shore ; but Jean Garnier 
 was not a cold-blooded assassin, even though the 
 Government notices posted at Lac St. Jean branded 
 him as murderer and outlav/. He had killed, but he 
 had killed as any man in the North would have killed, 
 in defense of his honor and his home. He had no re- 
 grets for the knife-thrust which had wiped out the 
 man he found, on his return, had stolen the wife he 
 had left on the Roberval when he went overseas as a 
 soldier of the King. But with these unknown men 
 whom the law had loosed on his trail he had no per- 
 
THE HIGH BROTHERHOOD ^ 
 
 sonal quarrel. To shoot them from ambush had not 
 been to the taste of one who for three years had lived 
 through the hell of German shell-fire and gas in the 
 Ypres salient. 
 
 So the half-breed had pushed on and on, past 
 Mistassini and Nichikun and the half-mythical Fad- 
 ing Waters into the labyrinth of imknown lakes and 
 streams of the Labrador watershed, trusting to wear 
 out the pursuit by sheer stamina and speed. And 
 for some time he had been convinced that the 
 parties searching for him, hardened voyageurs 
 though they were, used up on the trail, had turned 
 back. 
 
 But he was wrong. The Montagnais hunters, 
 whom he had passed two weeks before at the forks, 
 must have met a canoe of Provincial police still seek- 
 ing him, and betrayed the fact that he had taken the 
 east branch. 
 
 Twice during the summer he had looked at his pur- 
 suers over the sights of his rifle, and held his fire. 
 ISTow it was his life or theirs, for he was through. He 
 would turn and have it out. 
 
 Shortly, as the canoe swung across-stream with the 
 channel, Garnier saw that but one man stood between 
 him and his freedom — the freedom, if game proved 
 scarce, to face starvation through the long snows of 
 the winter which would soon shut in with its wither- 
 ing cold. 
 
 The sun had reached the ridge west of the river 
 when the half-breed left his point of observation and 
 
2^ TOILERS OF THE TRAILS 
 
 hurried down through the thick timber to his canoe 
 cached back from the stream, to procure extra shells 
 for his rifle. It would be simple enough to ambush 
 this canoeman, unaware of the nearness of his 
 quarry. So pumping a shell from the magazine into 
 the chamber of his thirty-thirty, he stole down along 
 the river shore. In a thicket of alders he awaited the 
 coming of the canoe. 
 
 Time passed, but to the straining ears of the out- 
 law there drifted no famUiar click of a pole striking 
 the stony bed of the stream. From his ambush he 
 could see but a short distance below him; so crawling 
 nearer the beach, he parted the alders and looked. 
 Before him the river opened up for a quarter-mile. 
 But the canoe was gone. 
 
 One of two things had happened: either his man 
 had gone ashore below the bend to make an early 
 camp, which was unlikely, or — something had 
 aroused his suspicions. 
 
 The half-breed raked his memory to recall having 
 dropped anything from his canoe, which, held up in 
 an eddy or alongshore, might have been noticed. He 
 had always made camp back from the water, always 
 obliterated his trail and fires, even in the last two 
 weeks when he had fancied that the pack were no 
 longer at his heels. At one time he had not made a 
 fire for three days, so closely had the pursuit come to 
 him among the islands of the great lake Mistassini. 
 His man could not be making camp so early; some- 
 thing had driven him ashore; but what? 
 
 Lifting his moccasined feet like a fox on the trail 
 
THE HIGH BROTHERHOOD 239 
 
 of a snow-shoe rabbit, Garnier cut back from the river,, 
 then turned down-stream. He had not travelled far 
 when suddenly a sound from the direction of the river 
 flattened him to the ground, ears straining, every 
 nerve alive. 
 
 Shortly the noise was repeated. The lean face of 
 the outlaw shaped a look of disgust. It was the un- 
 mistakable chuck of an axe. His caution was needless. 
 His enemy was making camp. 
 
 Moving out to the river shore the half-breed saw, 
 a hundred yards down-stream on the opposite bank, 
 the hunter of men calmly boiling his kettle. Close 
 by, his canoe lay bottom up on the beach. 
 
 It was not a long shot, but the light was going fast. 
 He would take no chances. In the night, when the 
 policeman slept, he would return. It would be surer 
 then. 
 
 Gamier back-tracked up-river to his canoe, got out 
 some stone-hard bannock, a piece of moose haunch 
 and his frying-pan, and taking his axe, went deep into 
 the forest. Then, because of the danger of the smoke 
 being seen, he waited until dusk blanketed the valley 
 before starting a fire. That night he might need all 
 his strength, for his foe down-stream had already 
 proved the stuff of which he was made by his very 
 presence in that unmapped valley of Rupert Land. 
 He alone had survived the heart-breaking pace up the 
 white waters and over the blind portages from Mis- 
 Itassini to the Fading Waters, in which but few white 
 men had ever wet a paddle. With such a foe Jean 
 Gamier would take no chances. He would eat heart- 
 
240 TOILERS OF THE TRAILS 
 
 ily and wait for the moon to set before dropping 
 down-stream to make an end of it. 
 
 Later on, deep in the night, a canoe crossed the 
 river, and then, snubbed by a pole muflBed with 
 moose-hide, slid silently with the current, imtil at 
 length it was turned in and left on the beach. 
 
 But not until the moon was smothered by an indigo 
 ridge did the hunter begin the stalk. The river was 
 low, so he chose the shore. The fretting of the swift 
 current on stones and ledges alone marred the silence 
 of the night. Noiseless as a lynx stalking ptarmigan, 
 the half-breed made his way slowly down the shore, 
 grasping his thirty-thirty in his right hand, with his 
 left parting willows and alders where they grew 
 close to the water. At times he entered the 
 river and waded, to avoid making a noise in the 
 " bush." 
 
 At last he reached the strip of beach on which lay 
 the upturned canoe. He crouched, listening to hear 
 the snoring of the sleeper, before he stood up behind 
 some willows. There, near the embers of a dying fire, 
 lay his man. Close by a rifle rested against a spruce. 
 
 The half-breed marvelled at the recklessness of this 
 man who had thus made his camp in the open, seem- 
 ingly regardless of the fact that he was hunting an 
 outlaw who would not be taken alive. 
 
 Garnier raised his rifle and covered the blanketed 
 form. There lay all that now stood in his way, help- 
 less in his hands. Just a pressure of his finger, and 
 he was a free man! He thought of the months of 
 gruelling toil and hardship he had imdergone because 
 
THE HIGH BROTHERHOOD 241 
 
 of this man and his breed. Now the last of these 
 wolves of police was out of the way. 
 
 But Jean Gamier did not crook his forefinger. 
 Something of the instinct of the cat to play with the 
 mouse caused him to lower his rifle. He wished to 
 see the face of the man who had followed him six 
 hundred miles, past the Chutes of the Fading Waters 
 into the Labrador wastes. 
 
 Retracing his footsteps up the shore, he slowly 
 worked around behind the camp. As he wormed his 
 way through the thick scrub something broke the quiet 
 of the deep night. For a moment the half-breed lay 
 breathless. Again the sound was repeated. It was 
 only the hoo-hoo of a gray owl hunting wood-mice in 
 the forest across the river. 
 
 Gamier ground his teeth in disgust for not having 
 shot his man when the chance offered. Now at any 
 moment the owl might wake the sleeper. He must 
 move fast. Swiftly the half-breed crawled to within 
 a few feet of his man. The policeman slept on his 
 back, half covered by his blanket, with the light from 
 the stars full on his face. 
 
 Despite the stubble of beard, it was clearly the face 
 of a young man, drawn lean with the hardships of the 
 long trail. On one side, from cheek-bone to ear, the 
 sleeper's face was furrowed by a deep red scar. 
 Death had once missed him by a hair. 
 
 The half-breed was so near now that he could have 
 touched his man with the muzzle of his rifle. The 
 night was not cold, and the shirt of the policeman lay 
 open at the neck, exposing his bronzed throat. Gar- 
 
242 TOILERS OF THE TRAILS 
 
 nier rose to his knees, thrusting his rifle before him, 
 then changed his mind, and reaching back with his 
 right hand, drew the knife in his belt. He would kill 
 this man as he had killed the other who had made him 
 an outlaw — as he had killed more than one enemy in 
 that far land overseas. 
 
 He moved nearer the motionless form in front of 
 him, and raising his right hand, gripping the knife, 
 braced his knees for the thrust, every muscle tense as 
 wire cable. But as he started to drive the lunge 
 home, the eyes of Jean Garnier widened in amaze- 
 ment; his right arm relaxed, dropping to his side, 
 while he stared at the neck of the one who slept so 
 calmly on the lap of Death. 
 
 There, attached by a narrow ribbon to a small gold 
 chain encircling the neck of the sleeping man, lay a 
 Maltese cross of bronze. 
 
 The half-breed bent nearer to see more clearly in 
 the dim starlight. 
 
 Yes, it was the Cross. Jean Garnier nodded his 
 head, convinced. 
 
 He glanced at the knife in his right hand which, 
 but for the glitter of gold in the starlight a moment 
 before, would have been smeared with the blood of 
 this man — this man who had done some great deed of 
 bravery, to wear that bit of bronze there at his throat. 
 
 The left hand of Jean Gamier sought his own neck 
 and drew from beneath the tattered shirt a duplicate 
 of the cross at the sleeper's throat. He also had once 
 been numbered among the high brotherhood of the 
 brave. 
 
THE HIGH BROTHERHOOD 243 
 
 Slowly the shape by the dying fire faded before his 
 eyes, and they looked upon another land, a treeless 
 waste tortured by three years of ruthless war. It 
 was night, and rocket, star-shell and flare pulsed and 
 glowed fitfully over a landscape of mud, crossed and 
 recrossed by trench and wire, pockmarked by shell- 
 hole and mine-crater. 
 
 Through an inferno of machine-gun and shell-fire, 
 across the refuse and litter of the Land-of -No-Man, 
 but the hell of all who entered it, the eyes of Jean 
 Garnier beheld a lone figure moving slowly, carrying 
 a burden on its back. At times it stopped for a space, 
 to crouch in a shell-hole; then it continued, now crawl- 
 ing, now rising to stumble along with its load, tmtil at 
 last it was swallowed in the refuge of a Canadian 
 trench. 
 
 The scene changed. A battalion of Canadian in- 
 fantry was drawn up in line at a rest-camp in Flan- 
 ders. Before the battalion six men stood stiff at at- 
 tention. Facing them were a brigadier general, the 
 colonel and the battalion adjutant. As the adjutant 
 read a name from^ the paper in his hand, the general 
 pinned something on the blouse of each soldier. 
 Then the adjutant called: 
 
 " Jean Garnier! " and read from the paper: " For 
 extraordinary heroism beyond the call of duty, in go- 
 ing back after a bombing raid and carrying his 
 wounded commanding officer through heavy shell 
 and machine-gun fire to the Canadian lines — the Vic- 
 toria Cross!" 
 
 Gradually the vision faded, and the outlaw's eyes 
 
244 TOILERS OF THE TRAILS 
 
 again rested on the cross at the sleeper's neck, then 
 fell to the bit of bronze he touched with his left hand. 
 
 Slowly he shook his head. This man, his enemy, 
 also had come out of that blood bath of Flanders 
 wearing the bronze badge of bravery. 
 
 The knife went back to its sheath. 
 
 Taking the policeman's rifle, Garnier crept down 
 to the canoe. There, with stones, he propped the 
 rifle on the beach, pointing down river. Near the 
 gun, on a strip of sand, which he ringed with stones, 
 the outlaw scrawled with his knife these words: 
 
 You av cros 
 
 I av cros 
 You brav man 
 
 Go back. 
 
 In the sand near the words he etched the outline of 
 the Victoria Cross. Then Jean Garnier returned to 
 his canoe and crossed the river. 
 
 At daybreak, Craig, of the Government police, 
 rolled out of his blanket, started his fire, and, when he 
 went to the river for water for his kettle, found 
 strange moccasin tracks, his rifle, and the scrawl on 
 the sand. 
 
 Craig read the scrawl, scratched his head, and in- 
 stead of speedily getting out of range, calmly cooked 
 and ate a slim breakfast, loaded his canoe, and poled 
 out to midstream. There he did a strange thing. 
 
 Standing bareheaded, with his right hand raised to 
 his forehead in the British salute, he faced each shore 
 
THE HIGH BROTHERHOOD 245 
 
 in turn, then he waked the silence of the valley with 
 the wild yell which on many a bloody day had 
 blanched the face of the Hun: 
 
 " Hij Canadians! " 
 
 Turning, the policeman paddled down-stream. 
 
 At the same time, from the willows of the river 
 shore a swart half-breed rose and stood like a spruce^ 
 with his right hand at his forehead, imtU the craft of 
 the hunter disappeared from the sight of the one no 
 longer hunted.