The Honor of the Big Snows Part 25

"An hour after he had gone, you could not see your hand before your face," replied Ledoq, preparing his pack. "There is no doubt but that he circled out over Lac Bain. We will go that far together, and then search alone."

They went back over the mountain, and stopped when instinct told them that they were opposite the spruce forests of the lake. There they separated, Jan going as nearly as he could guess into the northwest, Ledoq trailing slowly and hopelessly into the south.

It was no great sacrifice for Jan, this struggle with the big snows for the happiness of Melisse. What it was to Ledoq no man ever guessed or knew, for it was not until the late spring snows had gone that the people at Lac Bain found what the foxes and the wolves had left of him, far to the south.

Fearlessly Jan plunged into the white world of the lake. There was neither rock nor tree to guide him, for everywhere was the heavy ghost-raiment of the Indian G.o.d. The balsams were bending under it, the spruces were breaking into hunchback forms, the whole world was twisted in noiseless torture under its increasing weight. Out through the still terror of it all Jan's voice went in wild, echoing shouts. Now and then he fired his rifle, and always he listened long and intently. The echoes came back to him, laughing, taunting, and then each time fell the mirthless silence of the storm.

Day came, only a little lighter than the night. He crossed the lake, his snow-shoes sinking ankle-deep at every step, and once each half-hour he fired a single shot from his rifle. He heard shots to the south, and knew that it was Ledoq; each report coming to him more faintly than the last, until they had died away entirely.

Across the lake he struck the forest again, and his shouts echoed in futile inquiry in its weird depths. About him there was no sign of life, no sound except the faint fluttering of falling snow. Under five feet of this snow the four-footed creatures of the wilderness were snugly buried; close against the trunks of the spruces, sheltered within their tent-like coverings, the birds waited like lifeless things for the breaking of the storm.

At noon Jan stopped and ate his lunch. Then he went on, carrying his rifle always upon his right shoulder, so that the steps of his right leg would be shortened, and he would travel in a circle, as he believed Dixon had done.

The storm thickened with the falling of night, and he burrowed himself a great hole in the soft snow and filled it with balsam boughs for a bed. When he awakened, hours later, he stood up, and thrust out his head, and found himself buried to the arm-pits. With the aid of his broad snow-shoes he drew himself out, until he stood knee-deep in the surface.

He lifted his pack. As he swung it before him, one arm thrust through a strap, he gave a startled cry. Half of one side of the pack was eaten away! He thrust his hands through the breach, and a moan of despair sobbed on his lips when he found that his food was gone. A thin trickle of flour ran through his fingers upon the snow. He pulled out a gnawed pound of bacon, a little tea--and that was all.

Frantically he ripped the rent wider in his search, and when he stood up, his wild face staring into the chaos about him, he held only the bit of bacon in his hand. In it were the imprints of tiny teeth--sharp little razor-edged teeth that told him what had happened. While he had slept a mink had robbed him of his food!

With one of his shoes he began digging furiously in the snow. He tore his balsam bed to pieces. Somewhere--somewhere not very far away--the little animal must have cached its theft. He dug down until he came to the frozen earth. For an hour he worked and found nothing.

Then he stopped. Over a small fire he melted snow for tea and broiled a slice of the bacon, which he ate with the few biscuit crumbs he found in the pack. Every particle of flour that he could find he sc.r.a.ped up with his knife and put into one of the deep pockets of his caribou coat. After that he set cut in the direction in which he thought he would find Lac Bain.

Still he shouted for Dixon, and fired an occasional shot from his rifle. By noon he should have struck the lake. Noon came and pa.s.sed; the gloom of a second night fell upon him. He built himself a fire, and ate two-thirds of what remained of the bacon. The handful of flour in his pocket he did not disturb.

It was still night when he broke his rest and struggled on. His first fears were gone. In place of them, there filled him now a grim sort of pleasure. A second time he was battling with death for Melisse. And this, after all, was not a very hard fight for him. He had feared death in the red plague, but he did not fear the thought of this death that threatened him in the big snows. It thrilled him, instead, with a strange sort of exhilaration. If he died, it would be for Melisse, and for all time she would remember him for what he had done.

When he ate the last bit of his bacon, he made up his mind what he would do when the end came. In the stock of his rifle he would scratch a few last words to Melisse. He even arranged the words in his brain--four of them--"Melisse, I love you." He repeated them to himself as he staggered on, and that night, beside the fire he built, he began by carving her name.

"To-morrow," he said softly, "I will do the rest."

He was growing very hungry, but he did not touch the flour. For six hours he slept, and then drank his fill of hot tea.

"We will travel until day, Jan Th.o.r.eau," he informed himself, "and then, if nothing turns up, we will build our last camp, and eat the flour. It will be the last of us, for there will be no meat above this snow for days."

His snow-shoes were an impediment now, and he left them behind, along with one of his two blankets, which had grown to be like lead upon his shoulders. He counted his cartridges--ten of them. One of these he fired into the air.

Was that an echo he heard?

A sudden thrill shot through him. He strained his ears to catch a repet.i.tion of the sound. In a moment it came again--clearly no echo this time.

"Ledoq!" he cried aloud.

He fired again.

Back to him came the distant, splitting crack of a rifle. He forced his way toward it. After a little he heard the signal again, much nearer than before, and he fired in response. A few hundred yards farther on he came to a low mountain ridge, and lifted his voice in a loud shout.

A shot came from just over the mountain.

Waist deep in the light snow he began the ascent, dragging himself up by the tops of the slender saplings, stopping every few yards to half-stretch himself out in the soft ma.s.s through which he was struggling, panting with exhaustion. He shouted when he gained the top of the ridge. Up through the white blur of snow on the other side there came to him faintly a shout; yet, in spite of its faintness, Jan knew that it was very near.

"Something has happened to Ledoq," he told himself, "but he surely has food, and we can live it out until the storm is over."

It was easier going down the ridge, and he went quickly in the direction from which the voice had come, until a ma.s.s of huge boulders loomed up before him. There was a faint odor of smoke in the air, and he followed it in among the rocks, where it grew stronger.

"Ho, Ledoq!" he shouted.

A voice replied a dozen yards away. Slowly, as he advanced, he made out the dim shadow of life in the white gloom--a bit of smoke climbing weakly in the storm, the black opening of a brush shelter--and then, between the opening and the spiral of smoke, a living thing that came creeping toward him on all fours, like an animal.

He plunged toward it, and the shadow staggered upward, and would have fallen had it not been for the support of the deep snow. Another step, and a sharp cry fell from Jan's lips. It was not Ledoq, but Dixon, who stood there with white, starved face and staring eyes in the snow gloom!

"My G.o.d, I am starving--and dying for a drink of water!" gasped the Englishman chokingly, thrusting out his arms. "Th.o.r.eau, G.o.d be praised--"

He staggered, and fell in the snow. Jan dragged him back to the shelter.

"I will have water for you--and something to eat--very soon," he said.

His voice sounded unreal. There was a mistiness before his eyes which was not caused by the storm, a twisting of strange shadows that bothered his vision, and made him sway dizzily when he threw off his pack to stir the fire. He suspended his two small pails over the embers, which he coaxed into a blaze. Both he filled with snow; into one he emptied the handful of flour that he had carried in his pocket--into the other he put tea. Fifteen minutes later he carried them to the Englishman.

Dixon sat up, a glazed pa.s.sion filling his eyes. He drank the hot tea greedily, and as greedily ate the boiled flour-pudding. Jan watched him hungrily until the last crumb of it was gone. He refilled the pails with snow, added more tea, and then rejoined the Englishman. New life was already s.h.i.+ning in Dixon's eyes.

"Not a moment too soon, Th.o.r.eau," he said thankfully, reaching over to grip the other's hand.

"Another night and--" Suddenly he stopped. "Great Heaven, what is the matter?"

He noticed for the first time the pinched torture in his companion's face. Jan's head dropped weakly upon his breast. His hands were icy cold.

"Nothing," he murmured drowsily, "only--I'm starving, too, Dixon!" He recovered himself with an effort, and smiled into Dixon's startled face. "There is nothing to eat," he continued, as he saw the other direct his gaze toward the pack. "I gave you the last of the flour.

There is nothing--but salt and tea." He rolled over upon the balsam boughs with a restful sigh. "Let me sleep!"

Dixon went to the pack. One by one, in his search for food, he took out the few articles that it contained. After that he drank more tea, crawled back into the balsam shelter, and lay down beside Jan. It was broad day when he awoke, and he called hoa.r.s.ely to his companion when he saw that the snow had ceased falling.

Jan did not stir. For a moment Dixon leaned over to listen to his breathing, and then dragged himself slowly and painfully out into the day. The fire was out. A leaden blackness still filled the sky; deep, silent gloom hung in the wake of the storm.

Suddenly there came to Dixon's ears a sound. It was a sound that would have been unheard in the gentle whispering of a wind, in the swaying of the spruce-tops; but in this silence it fell upon the starving man's hearing with a distinctness that drew his muscles rigid and set his eyes staring about him in wild search. Just beyond the hanging pails a moose-bird hopped out upon the snow. It chirped hungrily, its big, owl-like eyes scrutinizing Dixon. The man stared back, fearing to move.

Slowly he forced his right foot through the snow to the rear of his left, and as cautiously brought his left behind his right, working himself backward step by step until he reached the shelter. Just inside was his rifle. He drew it out and sank upon his knees in the snow to aim. At the report of the rifle, Jan stirred but did not open his eyes; he made no movement when Dixon called out in shrill joy that he had killed meat. He heard, he strove to arouse himself, but something more powerful than his own will seemed pulling him down into oblivion. It seemed an eternity before he was conscious of a voice again. He felt himself lifted, and opened his eyes with his head resting against the Englishman's shoulder.

"Drink this, Th.o.r.eau," he heard.

He drank, and knew that it was not tea that ran down his throat.

"Whisky-jack soup," he heard again. "How is it?"

He became wide-awake. Dixon was offering him a dozen small bits of meat on a tin plate, and he ate without questioning. Suddenly, when there were only two or three of the smallest sc.r.a.ps left, he stopped.

"Mon Dieu, it was whisky-jack!" he cried. "I have eaten it all!"

The young Englishman's white face grinned at him.

"I've got the flour inside of me, Th.o.r.eau--you've got the moose-bird.