The Gaunt Gray Wolf Part 24

Then there were the print frocks for everyday wear, to be freshly laundered and packed with other clothing into a new wooden chest which her father had made for her; and the innumerable last things to be done, which kept Emily and her mother in a continuous state of flurry and excitement.

Quite too soon Emily's last day at home dawned, and, true to his appointment, Douglas Campbell arrived during the afternoon. He looked very grand and dignified and altogether unlike himself in his suit of grey tweed. He wore this suit only on those rare occasions--usually at intervals of three or four years--when business called him to St.

Johns, and Emily had but once before seen him so strangely attired.

He looked so strange and unnatural--so unlike the good old Douglas that she loved, in moleskin trousers and pea-jacket or ad.i.c.ky--that she felt he was somehow different, and that the world was going all topsy-turvy.

And then for the first time there came to her a full realisation of the great change that was to take place in her life--that she was going far from home and into a strange land--that for many, many months she was to see neither her father nor her mother--that she was to live among strangers who cared nothing for her--that she would be separated from those who loved her and all that she held dear in the world. A great ache came into her heart--the first heart-hunger of the homesick--and she slipped away behind the curtain to throw herself upon her little white bed and seek relief in stifled sobs.

Presently as she lay there, weeping quietly to herself, loud exclamations of hearty welcome from her father and mother as some one entered the door caused her to sit up and listen. Then she recognised Tom Black's voice, and heard Bessie asking:

"Where's Emily?"

This was splendid! Bessie had come to spend the night! And, quickly drying her tears and forgetting her heartache, Emily rushed out to greet her friend and to find that the whole Black family were there--Tom, the motherly Mrs. Black, and Bessie.

"Oh, Emily, I just had t' come t' see you off!" exclaimed Bessie, as the two girls rushed together and hugged each other in delight. "I coaxes, an' coaxes, an' coaxes Father t' bring me over, an' he just teases me an' says he's busy, an' Mr. McDonald can't spare he, till this mornin' he says we're comin'. An' all th' time he an' Mother's plannin' t' come!"

"'Twon't do t' tell a maid everything you plans t' do," Tom chuckled.

Bessie pursed up her red lips, and tossing her head at him laughed gaily, showing her dimples.

"Oh, but you just had t' come anyway, for I'd never give you a bit o'

peace if you hadn't."

Her cheeks flushed with excitement and her eyes sparkling with pleasure, Tom looked at her proudly, and could not refrain from the remark:

"She ain't a very humbly la.s.s, now be she, Richard?"

"Now, Father, stop teasin' Bessie," cautioned Mrs. Black. "He's always teasin' th' la.s.s."

"I'm just dyin' t' see your things, Emily!" exclaimed Bessie, as Emily took her friend's bonnet and wraps. "An, I couldn't let you go without seein' you. An' I'm goin' t' stay awhile, too, with your mother.

She'll be so lonesome without somebody t' talk to when you goes."

"Oh, Bessie! How wonderful glad I am o' that! I were just thinkin' how lonesome Mother were goin' t' be with me an' Bob both gone--an'--an'

'twere makin' me feel bad;" and Emily brushed away a tear.

"We'll not be lettin' your mother, nor father, either, get lonesome,"

said Douglas, patting her shoulder gently and looking down in his kindly way into her face. "Bessie'll be 'bidin' here till I comes back in October, an' then she'll be comin' again after th' New Year for a long stop. An' I'll be comin' once every week, whatever."

"Oh, I'm hopin' so!" Mrs. Gray exclaimed. "I'm not darin' t' think about how 'twill be when Emily's gone."

"Now I knows, an' Tom knows; an' we was talkin' t' Douglas about un when he were over t' th' post, an' we were sayin', 'Now Bessie'll have t' go over an' 'bide awhile with Mary when Emily's gone,'" said Mrs.

Black.

"An' you never tells me, an' just lets me tease t' come!" pouted Bessie.

"We were wantin' t' surprise you, la.s.s. An'," Mrs. Black continued, addressing Mrs. Gray, "I knows what 'tis t' be alone, now, an' th' men folks is all in th' bush. I used t' be alone before Tom takes th'

place t' th' post; but now we has plenty o' company."

"'Tis wonderful good an' thoughtful of you!" Mrs. Gray exclaimed heartily. "Now set in an' have a cup o' tea an' a bite. You must need un after th' cruise over."

The evening was spent in chatting and visiting and looking over Emily's new clothes. Neither Emily nor Bessie--both overcome with excitement--slept much, however, that night, for they had a world to talk about as they lay in bed--but most of all the great and wonderful experiences Emily was to have.

Emily and her mother clung to each other, and Bessie to both of them, and cried and cried, when the time for parting came the following morning, until finally Douglas and Richard were compelled to draw Emily gently into the boat. Then motherly Mrs. Black, surrept.i.tiously brus.h.i.+ng tears from her own eyes, put her arm around Mrs. Gray and soothingly urged:

"Don't be cryin', Mary. Th' maid's goin' t' be all right, an' they's nothin' to cry for. 'Twon't be so long till you has she back."

Richard had the hull of the little schooner well under way when the mid-October cold forced him to abandon the work until the following summer, and he was preparing to set out upon his trail when Douglas appeared one evening, fresh from St. Johns, to report Emily comfortably settled in the home of a hospitable family near the school she was attending, and that she was immensely interested in her studies and fairly well contented, though a little lonesome at times for home.

Douglas evidently had something on his mind that troubled him. Once Mrs. Gray asked if he were ailing, but he denied anything but the best of health. Finally, however, as a disagreeable duty that he must perform, the kind-hearted old trapper said:

"I'm not knowin' just how t' tell you--'twill be a wonderful hard blow t' th' lad--th' bank where Bob were puttin' his money has broke, an'

I'm fearin' th' money's all lost."

"Lost! Lost!" exclaimed Richard and Mrs. Gray together.

"Aye," said Douglas, "lost."

Then he explained fully the failure of the bank, in which he also had a small amount on deposit, and the improbability of any of the depositors recovering more than a nominal percentage of their deposits, and even that doubtful.

"Well," said Mrs. Gray, "'twill be wonderful hard on th' lad, an' he countin' so on th' tradin' business."

"Aye," repeated Richard, "wonderful hard on he. Wonderful hard an'

disappointin', After all his plannin' an' hopin' an' thinkin' about un."

"An' Emily's schoolin' charge! How now be we goin' t' pay un?" asked Mrs. Gray.

"Don't worry about that, now," said Douglas. "I were wantin' she t'

go, an' I were th' first t' say for she t' go, an' I'll see, now, about un this year, whatever. Don't worry about th' schoolin', now."

"But we can't be havin' you pay un," remonstrated Richard.

"Well, now, don't worry about un," insisted Douglas. "We'll see. We'll see."

They lapsed into silence for a little, when Bessie remarked:

"'Tisn't so bad, now. 'Tis bad t' lose th' money, an' 'twill be hard an' disappointin' t' Bob, but he's a wonderful able lad--they's no other lad in th' Bay so able as Bob. He's a fine lot o' traps on his new trails, an' he'll not be doin' so bad, now."

"Yes," agreed Douglas, "he be, now, a wonderful able lad."

"And," Richard spoke up, beginning to see the brighter side of the situation, "Bob owns un, an' he's havin' no debt, an' he's payin' up all our debts. They's no other folk o' th' Bay as well off as we be."

"I weren't thinkin' of un that way. I were just thinkin' of how hard 'twill be for Bob-givin' up th' tradin'," Mrs. Gray explained. "But we has a lot t' be thankful for, an', as Bessie says, Bob's young an'

wonderful able."

But nevertheless it was a hard blow--a disheartening blow--to all of them. Bob had planned so much for the future, he was still planning and dreaming of his career as a trader, and building air castles--away up there in the desolate white wilderness.

This meant, instead of the realisation of those dreams, a tedious, interminable tramping, year after year, of the fur trails, an always uncertain, a never-ending, struggle for the bare necessities of life.

A single bad year would throw them again into debt; two bad years in succession would plunge them so hopelessly into debt that the most earnest effort for the remainder of his life would not relieve Bob of its burden.