The Gaunt Gray Wolf Part 15

"No," and Bob shook his head ominously, "I'm ready t' take any fair chanct, Shad, but they wouldn't be even a fair chanet t' make un."

"Oh, bos.h.!.+" exclaimed Shad angrily. "I thought you had some nerve."

"'Tisn't a matter o' nerve, Shad; 'tis a matter o' what can be done an' what can't."

"Oh, yes, it can! Anyone with two legs and two hands and two eyes and just a grain of grit can do it."

Bob, quiet and unruffled, grilled his rabbit, refusing to take offence or to be moved at Shad's remarks, evidently intended to goad him into what his experience told him would certainly prove a hopeless and foolhardy venture.

It is a psychological phenomenon that men, denied action and confined to limited and solitary surroundings, become highly irascible. They find cause for offence in every word and every action of their companions, and it is not unusual for men situated as Ungava Bob and Shad Trowbridge were to lapse into such a state of antagonism toward one another that they cease to converse.

This was the condition into which Shad Trowbridge quickly lapsed. He soon came to ascribe to timidity and cowardice Bob's opposition to his wish to attempt a crossing to the mainland. He was one who chafed under restraint, and one who, when he had once decided upon a course of action, could not brook opposition from another; and though at heart he knew that Bob was fearless and brave, and that his arguments were sound, yet he would not now admit this, even to himself.

Normally Shad was a good fellow, and he would endure hards.h.i.+ps cheerfully if the hards.h.i.+ps were accompanied by physical activity; but the condition of monotonous existence, accompanied by idleness and inactivity, which they were now experiencing, was too great for him to withstand, and he was prepared to take the most desperate chance to escape from it. When at length the tea and his tobacco were gone, and nothing but the daily ration of unseasoned rabbit remained, the thought of thus continuing indefinitely became unendurable to him.

Ungava Bob, on the contrary, had been accustomed to wilderness solitude all his life. This, and a naturally even disposition, coupled with a philosophical temperament, rendered him capable of overlooking Shad's slurs, and when finally Shad ceased to speak to him, or when spoken to by Bob ceased to acknowledge that he heard, Bob permitted the slight to pa.s.s unnoticed.

At length, one day, when Shad had nursed his supposed grievance to a point where he could no longer endure it, he blurted out brutally:

"See here, I've stood this devilish cowardice of yours as long as I'm going to. Do you see where the sun is! It's noon. Now I'll give you until that sun drops half-way to the horizon to decide whether or not you're going across with me. If you say 'No,' I'm going without you, that's all, and you can stay here and eat rabbit, and rot, if you choose."

"Now, Shad," Bob placated, "I knows how you feels, an' it's your judgment ag'in mine. But I'm havin' experience with places like that, an' I knows we can't make th' crossin' an' land. Now don't try un, Shad."

"Don't 'Shad' me--My G.o.d, Bob! Look there!" he suddenly broke off.

Shooting past them, half standing in their birch canoe, paddling with the desperation of men facing doom, one with his sound paddle, the other with his broken one, were the Indians that Manikawan had sent adrift.

They were very near the island--so near that every outline of their drawn, terrorstricken faces was visible--but too far away to reach the gravelly point upon which Bob and Shad had found refuge. Indeed, they seemed not to see it, or to see anything but the horrible spectral phantom of the evil spirit that they believed had them in its control.

On--on--on-they sped, ever faster--faster toward the pounding rapids--impotently, though still desperately, wielding their paddles.

Bob and Shad stood spellbound and horror-stricken. The Indians were nearing the first white foam! In a moment their canoe would strike it!

It was in the foam! It rose for an instant upon a white crest, the Indians' paddles still working--then was swallowed up in the swirling tumult of waves and whirlpools, never to reappear.

Ungava Bob and Shad Trowbridge stood for a moment in awe-stricken horror. Then they sat down upon the rock on which Shad had sunk when overcome with shock on the day of their escape upon the island.

"Bob," said Shad, at last, "that was the most terrible thing I ever beheld!"

"'Twere awful!" a.s.sented Bob.

"It shows us, Bob, what you and I escaped. Bob, I've been very disagreeable lately. Take my hand and forgive me, won't you?"

"'Twere th' rabbit meat, Shad," said Bob, taking Shad's hand. "Rabbit meat be wonderful tryin' t' eat steady. I were knowin', now, you'd be all right again, Shad."

"I think I've been demented, Bob--I'm sure I have--anyway, believe it, and don't hold it against me."

"I'll not be holdin' un ag'in you, Shad. 'Twere natural, and--" Bob ceased speaking and sat staring at the high bank of the mainland.

"Manikawan!" he exclaimed, springing up and crossing the island point at a bound.

There she stood, joy, wonder, incredulity, written upon her face. She had believed White Brother of the Snow dead, but here she saw him in flesh and alive, and he had spoken her name.

"White Brother of the Snow! Oh, White Brother of the Snow! The evil spirits did not devour you, but like hungry wolves they have devoured your enemies."

Very quickly Bob explained their predicament, and she listened silently. Then she went to the sloping rock, descended its dangerous angle to the water's edge, and returned.

"White Brother of the Snow and his friend would find no lodgment there," said she. "It is a place of deceit. But White Brother of the Snow knows how to be patient. Let him and his friend wait. The evil spirits cannot reach up for them where they are. When the sun returns again to the high point in the heavens Manikawan will stand here.

Wait."

The next instant she was gone.

"What did she say?" asked Shad.

"She were sayin'," explained Bob, "that if we has patience an' waits she'll be back by noon to-morrow, or thereabouts. An' she says if we waits here we'll be safe, but we couldn't be makin' a footin' on th'

rock. She's thinkin' o' some way o' gettin' us off, but I'm not knowin' what 'tis, now."

XIII

ON THE TRAIL OF THE INDIANS

None of the three trappers had ever penetrated the region lying between the Big Hill trail and the river. They knew that here, somewhere, Ungava Bob was to lay his new trails, but as to the route the trails were to take they had no information, for this was a circ.u.mstance that the local evidences of the existence of fur-bearing animals was to have decided for Bob when he entered the country to make his initial survey of conditions.

Among the Indians who traded at the Eskimo Bay post there was but one, an old man, who had any personal knowledge of the region. When a small boy this Indian had once traversed with his father the now long disused portage trail; and one day when Ungava Bob and d.i.c.k Blake met him at the post he had, at their earnest solicitation, described to them the country as he had seen it with the distorted vision of extreme youth, and as his memory, alloyed with the superst.i.tious tales of nearly threescore years, recalled it.

It was, he said, a region of many lakes, over which flitted the phantom canoes of those who had perished in the nearby dwelling place of evil spirits. In the canoes were the ghostly forms of the victims, for ever paddling their phantom crafts around the lakes, vainly striving to escape the torment of mocking, ghoulish spirits which pursued them. Surrounding the lakes were wild marshes and deep black forests, which were peopled by innumerable evil spirits for ever searching for new victims to destroy. Their thunder voices were always to be heard, low and deep, in a terrible frenzy of unceasing anger, ever hungry for men to devour.

In a.n.a.lysing this description d.i.c.k Blake eliminated the phantom canoes as the wild creation of imagination, and the thunder voices of evil spirits he set down as nothing more nor less than the roar of the great falls of whose existence the Indians had told.

With this elimination he accepted as fact the statement that the region was sprinkled with many lakes, and that without the a.s.sistance of a canoe these lakes and perhaps some wide marshes would have to be circ.u.mvented by him and his companions before they came upon the river above the falls, where it was expected the Mingen Indians would be encountered.

While d.i.c.k Blake was the first to declare that the Indians must be punished for causing the supposed death of Bob and Shad, he was no more thoroughly in earnest than were his companions.

Normally these trappers were quiet, peace-loving men, who would have shuddered at the thought of causing human bloodshed; but now, moved doubtless to a large extent by a natural desire to avenge an outrage committed upon their friends, they also felt it their plain duty to mete out punishment to the guilty ones, in order to insure themselves and other white trappers against further molestation. Unless this were done there was no guarantee against continued raids upon their tilts, and there would always be the danger, and even probability, that sooner or later they would themselves be attacked and shot from ambush by the emboldened savages.

The trail that Bob had made, leading up from the river tilt and along the creek which flowed from the first lake, was plainly marked; and they proceeded with the long, swinging stride characteristic of the woodsman, rapidly and without a halt, to the point where the trail entered the lake. Here a wide circuit around the lake sh.o.r.e was necessary, and it was nearly noon when they fell again into the trail at the farther end and came upon the first tilt.

"We may's well stop an' boil th' kettle," said d.i.c.k, throwing down the light pack of provisions he carried and mopping the perspiration from his forehead, for the mid-day sun was warm. "If we were only havin' a canoe, now, we'd be a rare piece farther. 'Twere a long cruise around the lake."

"Aye," agreed Ed, "a canoe'd ha' saved us a good two hours. We may's well put th' fire on outside; 'twill be warm in th' tilt."

"Now I'm wonderin' what th' Injun la.s.s is up to," said d.i.c.k, as they sat down to their simple meal of fried pork and camp bread.

"She's got a canoe. There's her footin' by th' lake, where she makes her landin'."

"They's no tellin' what an Injun's goin' t' do, but I'm not thinkin'

'twill be much harm, t' th' Mingens with just a bow an' arrer, an'

that's all she has in th' way o' weapons, so far's I makes out,"

declared Ed, adding: "She were a wonderful fine-lookin' la.s.s; now, weren't she?"