Romany of the Snows, Continuation of "Pierre and His

People", v4

Gilbert Parker

The Project Gutenberg EBook Romany Of The Snows, v4, by Gilbert Parker

#11 in our series by Gilbert Parker

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Little Babiche

At Point O' Bugles

The Spoil Of The Puma

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A ROMANY OF THE SNOWS

BEING A CONTINUATION OF THE PERSONAL HISTORIES OF "PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE"

AND THE LAST EXISTING RECORDS OF PRETTY PIERRE

By Gilbert Parker

Volume 4.

"No, no, m'sieu' the governor, they did not tell you right. I was with

him, and I have known Little Babiche fifteen years--as long as I've known

you. . . . It was against the time when down in your world there they

have feastings, and in the churches the grand songs and many candles on

the altars. Yes, Noel, that is the word--the day of the Great Birth.

You shall hear how strange it all was--the thing, the time, the end of

it."

The governor of the great Company settled back in a chair, his powerful

face seamed by years, his hair grey and thick still, his keen, steady

eyes burning under shaggy brows. He had himself spent long solitary

a glitter, so lovely, so deadly. If only you could keep the heart warm,

you were not afraid. But if once--just for a moment--the blood ran out

from the heart and did not come in again, the frost clamped the doors

a man's heart in anger there is no pain like it--for a moment."

"Yes, yes; and Little Babiche?"

"For ten years he carried the mails along the route of Fort St. Mary,

Fort O'Glory, Fort St. Saviour, and Fort Perseverance within the circle-

just one mail once a year, but that was enough. There he was with his

Esquimaux dogs on the trail, going and coming, with a laugh and a word

for anyone that crossed his track. 'Good-day, Babiche' 'Good-day,

m'sieu'.' 'How do you, Babiche?' 'Well, thank the Lord, m'sieu'.'

'Where to and where from, Babiche?' 'To the Great Fort by the old trail,

from the Far-off River, m'sieu'.' 'Come safe along, Babiche.' 'Merci,

m'sieu'; the good God travels north, m'sieu'.' 'Adieu, Babiche.' 'Adieu,

m'sieu'.' That is about the way of the thing, year after year. Sometimes

there should be highwaymen on the Prairie of the Ten Stars! But no, it

I not travelled to every corner of the north? We were not so great

friends, for--well, Babiche is a man who says his aves, and never was a

were good company when we met. I knew him when he was a boy down on the

him fight, I had seen him suffer cold, and I had heard him sing.

silver as it powdered the sunlight, the white level of snow lifting and

falling, and falling and lifting, the sky so great a travel away, the air

which made you cry out with pain one minute and gave you joy the next.

And all so wild, so lonely! Yet I have seen hanging in those plains

voices everywhere, like the singing of soft masses. After a time in that

cold up there you are no longer yourself--no. You move in a dream. "Eh

bien, m'sieu', there came, I thought, a dream to me one evening--well,

perhaps one afternoon, for the days are short--so short, the sun just

coming over a little bend of sky, and sinking down like a big orange

ball. I come out of a tumble of little hills, and there over on the

plains I saw a sight! Ragged hills of ice were thrown up, as if they'd

been heaved out by the breaking earth, jutting here and there like

wedges--like the teeth of a world. Alors, on one crag, shaped as an

anvil, I saw what struck me like a blow, and I felt the blood shoot out

of my heart and leave it dry. I was for a minute like a pump with no

water in its throat to work the piston and fetch the stream up. I got

shining. But that was not the thing--there was another. At the feet of

cannot think, m'sieu', what that was like--no. But all at once I

remembered the Chant of the Scarlet Hunter. I spoke it quick, and the

blood came creeping back in here." He tapped his chest with his slight

"What was the chant?" asked the governor, who had scarce stirred a

muscle since the tale began. Pierre made a little gesture of

deprecation. "Ah, it is perhaps a thing of foolishness, as you may

think--"

"No, no. I have heard and seen in my day," urged the governor.

"So? Good. Yes, I remember, you told me years ago, m'sieu'. . . .

"The blinding Trail and Night and Cold are man's: mine is the trail

that finds the Ancient Lodge. Morning and Night they travel with

me; my camp is set by the pines, its fires are burning--are burning.

The lost, they shall sit by my fires, and the fearful ones shall

shalt journey, and thine the Safe Tent.

"As I said, the blood came back to my heart. I turned to my dogs, and

gave them a cut with the whip to see if I dreamed. They sat back and

bear and the quiet man on the anvil of ice and snow. Tell me, can you

Pole, that has no friends at all except the shooting stars, the great ice

plains, the quick night hurrying on, the silence--such silence as no man

dogs all at once come huddling about me, and I dropped on my knee to take

aim, but the bear stole away from the man and come moving down past us at

an angle, making for the plain. I could see his deep shining eyes, and

the steam roll from his nose in long puffs. Very slow and heavy, like as

was gone behind a boulder. I ran on to the man--"

The governor was leaning forward, looking intently, and said now: "It's

like a wild dream--but the north--the north is near to the Strangest of

All!"

"I knelt down and lifted him up in my arms, all a great bundle of furs

and wool, and I got my hand at last to his wrist. He was alive. It was

Little Babiche! Part of his face was frozen stiff. I rubbed out the

frost with snow, and then I forced some brandy into his mouth, good old

H.B.C. brandy,--and began to call to him: 'Babiche! Babiche! Come

back, Babiche! The wolf's at the pot, Babiche!' That's the way to call

round him. I gave him more brandy; and at last I almost shrieked in his

For I never knew one to come back after the sleep had settled on them.

It is too comfortable--all pain gone, all trouble, the world forgot, just

a kind weight in all the body, as you go sinking down, down to the

soft, high voices cry, 'Hello! hello-o!'" Pierre nodded his head

towards the distance, and a musing smile divided his lips on his white

teeth. Presently he folded a cigarette, and went on:

"I had saved something to the last, as the great test, as the one thing

to open his eyes wide, if they could be opened at all. Alors, there was

no time to lose, for the wolf of Night was driving the red glow-worm down

behind the world, and I knew that when darkness came altogether--darkness

and night--there would be no help for him. Mon Dieu! how one sleeps in

the night of the north, in the beautiful wide silence! . . . So,

m'sieu', just when I thought it was the time, I called, 'Corinne!

Corinne!' Then once again I said, 'P'tite Corinne! P'tite Corinne!

Come home! come home! P'tite Corinne!' I could see the fight in the

jail of sleep. But at last he killed his jailer; the doors in his brain

hard, and spoke loud from a song that we used to sing on the Chaudiere--

"'Which is the way that the sun goes?

Which is the good path over the hills?

To my little one's home, m'sieu', m'sieu'!'

himself; and I said, 'Where've you been, Babiche? Lucky I found you, or

you'd have been sleeping till the Great Mass.' Then he looked at me

straight in the eyes, and something wild shot out of his. His hand

stretched over and caught me by the shoulder, perhaps to steady himself,

slow-all round the plain, as if to find something. At that moment a

little of the sun crept back, and looked up over the wall of ice, making

a glow of yellow and red for a moment; and never, north or south, have I

seen such beauty--so delicate, so awful. It was like a world that its

Maker had built in a fit of joy, and then got tired of, and broke in

pieces, and blew out all its fires, and left--ah yes--like that!

And out in the distance I--I only saw a bear travelling eastwards."

The governor said slowly:

And I took My staff Beauty, and cut it asunder, that I might break

My covenant which I had made with all the people.

meant the bear. 'Gone to look for another man,' I said, with a gay look,

south. 'My dogs--Brandy-wine, Come-along, 'Poleon, and the rest--died

one night all of an hour. One by one they crawl over to where I lay in

my fur bag, and die there, huddling by me--and such cries--such cries!

them every one; and then there was the mails, the year's mails--how

should they be brought on? That was a bad thought, for I had never

missed--never in ten years. There was one bunch of letters which the

governor said to me was worth more than all the rest of the mails put

together, and I was to bring it to Fort St. Saviour, or not show my face

to him again. I leave the dogs there in the snow, and come on with the

sled, carrying all the mails. Ah, the blessed saints, how heavy the sled

got, and how lonely it was! Nothing to speak to--no one, no thing, day

after day. At last I go to cry to the dogs, "Come-along! 'Poleon!

Brandy-wine!"--like that! I think I see them there, but they never bark

and they never snarl, and they never spring to the snap of the whip....

I was alone. Oh, my head! my head! If there was only something alive

to look at, besides the wide white plain, and the bare hills of ice, and

the sun-dogs in the sky! Now I was wild, next hour I was like a child,

Friend, my Jesu, just something, something with the breath of life!

"'I was sinking, sinking, so quiet and easy, when all at once I felt

eyes at first, for, as I say, the lashes were froze. Something touch me,

soft and touch it. I had no fear, I was so glad I could have hug it, but

I did not--I drew back my hand quiet and rub my eyes. In a little I can

warm! Day after day we travel together, and camp together at night--ah,

sweet Sainte Anne, how good it was, myself and the wild beast such

friends, alone in the north! But to-day--a little while ago--something

went wrong with me, and I got sick in the head, a swimming like a tide

me--that is all. The bear must have drag me here.'"

Pierre stuck a splinter into the fire to light another cigarette, and

paused as if expecting the governor to speak, but no word coming, he

continued: "I had my arm around him while we talked and come slowly down

the hill. Soon he stopped and said, 'This is the place.' It was a cave

of ice, and we went in. Nothing was there to see except the sled.

Babiche stopped short. It come to him now that his good comrade was

gone. He turned, and looked out, and called, but there was only the

empty night, the ice, and the stars. Then he come back, sat down on the

sled, and the tears fall. . . . I lit my spirit-lamp, boiled coffee,

got pemmican from my bag, and I tried to make him eat. No. He would

and kept saying in a whisper: 'Ma p'tite Corinne! Ma p'tite Corinne!'

"The letter was to tell a factor that his sick child in the hospital at

Quebec was well," the governor responded quietly. "Who was 'Ma p'tite

"His wife--in heaven; and his child--on the Chaudiere, m'sieu'. The

child came and the mother went on the same day of the Great Birth. He

has a soft heart--that Babiche!"

"And the white bear--so strange a thing!"

"M'sieu', who can tell? The world is young up here. When it was all

young, man and beast were good comrades, maybe."

"Ah, maybe. What shall be done with Little Babiche, Pierre?"

"He will never be the same again on the old trail, m'sieu'!"

Babiche shall live near his child, Pierre. I will see to that."

Pierre said no word, but got up, took off his hat to the governor, and

sat down again.

peering round.

"Hush!" was Pierre's reply. "Wait for the rest. . . . There!"

bugles."

Sir Duke was about to speak, but Pierre lifted a hand in warning, and

then through the still night there came the long cry of a bugle, rising,

falling, strangely clear, echoing and echoing again, and dying away. A

moment, and the call was repeated, with the same effect, and again a

third time; then all was still, save for the flight of birds roused from

the desire of night, and the long breath of some animal in the woods

sinking back to sleep.

Their camp was pitched on the south shore of Hudson's Bay, many leagues

to the west of Rupert House, not far from the Moose River. Looking north

shake out his frosty curtains and hang them on the cornice of the north,

shares in the great Company, left him by his uncle the admiral.

They were camped in a hollow, to the right a clump of hardy trees, with

of land running out into the water like a wedge, the most eastern point

of the western shore of Hudson's Bay. It was high and bold, and,

somehow, had a fine dignity and beauty. From it a path led away north to

a great log-fort called King's House.

Lawless saw Pierre half rise and turn his head, listening. Presently he,

too, heard the sound-the soft crash of crisp grass under the feet. He

raised himself to a sitting posture and waited.

Presently a tall figure came out of the dusk into the light of their

fire, and a long arm waved a greeting at them. Both Lawless and Pierre

rose to their feet. The stranger was dressed in buckskin, he carried a

rifle, and around his shoulder was a strong yellow cord, from which hung

a bugle.

hands to the blaze.

"How!" said Lawless and Pierre.

without a word handed it over the fire. The fingers of the two men met

the flask.

as did the others, and said "Chin-chin" also.

By that salutation of the east, given in the far north, Lawless knew that

he had met one who had lighted fires where men are many and close to the

They all sat down, and tobacco went round, the stranger offering his,

while the two others, with true hospitality, accepted.

"We heard you over there--it was you?" said Lawless, nodding towards

Point o' Bugles, and glancing at the bugle the other carried.

"Yes, it was I," was the reply. "Someone always does it twice a year: on

the 25th September and the 25th March. I've done it now without a break

for ten years, until it has got to be a sort of religion with me, and the

whole thing's as real as if King George and John York were talking. As I

tramp to the point or swing away back, in summer barefooted, in winter on

scarcely know which is the bare story, and which the bit's I've dreamed

King's."

silence, stole noiselessly over to the wall, took down his gun quietly,

"To kill the puma, you must watch--always watch. You will see his yellow

eyes sometimes in a tree: you must be ready before he springs. You will

hear his breath at night as you pretend to sleep, and you wait till you

see his foot steal out of the shadow--then you have him. From a mountain

wall you watch in the morning, and, when you see him, you follow, and

follow, and do not rest till you have found him. You must never miss

fire, for he has great strength and a mad tooth. But when you have got

him, he is worth all. You cannot eat the grizzly--he is too thick and

coarse; but the puma--well, you had him from the pot to-night. Was he

not good?"

Lawless's brows ran up in surprise. Shon spoke quickly:

as pullets, for all that--but I wish you hadn't tould us."

The old man stood leaning on his gun, his chin on his hands, as they

covered the muzzle, his eyes fixed on something in his memory, the vision

They both watched Pourcette. "D'ye think he's mad?" asked Shon in a

whisper. Lawless shook his head: "Mad? No. But there's more in this

there's a story in that."

"Faith, Lawless, there's a story worth the hearin', I'm thinkin', to

every white man in this country. For the three years I was in the

--and not all o' them would make you happy to hear."

Pourcette turned round to them. He seemed to be listening to Shon's

words. Going to the wall, he hung up the rifle; then he came to the fire

and stood holding out his hands to the blaze. He did not look in the

least mad, but like a man who was dominated by some one thought, more

or less weird. Short and slight, and a little bent, but more from habit

--the habit of listening and watching--than from age, his face had a

stern kind of earnestness and loneliness, and nothing at all of insanity.

Presently Lawless went to a corner and from his kit drew forth a flask.

The old man saw, and immediately brought out a wooden cup. There were

of the jacket a knife-slit. There was blood also on the buckskin.

"Holy Mary!" he said, and retreated. Lawless had not noticed; he was

raised it towards a gun hung above the fireplace, and said something

under his breath.

"A dramatic little fellow," thought Lawless; "the spirit of his

forefathers--a good deal of heart, a little of the poseur."

Then hearing Shon's exclamation, he turned.

"It's an ugly sight," said Shon, pointing to the jacket. They both

looked at Pourcette, expecting him to speak. The old man reached to the

coat, and, turning it so that the cut and the blood were hid, ran his

hand down it caressingly. "Ah, poor Jo! poor Jo Gordineer!" he said;

then he came over once more to the fire, sat down, and held out his hands

to the fire, shaking his head.

and there was the same look in the faces of both. When Shon had drunk,

murdered--"

first."

Years before, when Shon M'Gann and Pierre and Lawless had sojourned in

the Pipi Valley, Jo Gordineer had been with them, as stupid and true a

Shon went over to the coat, did as Pourcette had done, and said: "Is it

gone y'are, Jo, wid your slow tongue and your big heart? Wan by wan the

lads are off."

Pourcette, without any warning, began speaking, but in a very quiet tone

at first, as if unconscious of the others:

"Poor Jo Gordineer! Yes, he is gone. He was my friend--so tall, and

such a hunter! We were at the Ding Dong goldfields together. When luck

went bad, I said to him: 'Come, we will go where there is plenty of wild

meat, and a summer more beautiful than in the south.' I did not want to

part from him, for once, when some miner stole my claim, and I fought, he

stood by me. But in some things he was a little child. That was from

his big heart. Well, he would go, he said; and we came away."

He suddenly became silent; and shook his head, and spoke under his

"Well, the other followed, as I said, and--"

"No, Pourcette," interposed Lawless, "you didn't say. Who was the other

The old man looked at him gravely, and a little severely, and continued:

"As I said, Gawdor followed--he and an Indian. Gawdor thought we were

going for gold, because I had said I knew a place in the north where

there was gold in a river--I know the place, but that is no matter. We

did not go for gold just then. Gawdor hated Jo Gordineer. There was a

half-breed girl. She was fine to look at. She would have gone to

Gordineer if he had beckoned, any time; but he waited--he was very slow,

except with his finger on a gun; he waited too long.

"Gawdor was mad for the girl. He knew why her feet came slow to the door

when he knocked. He would have quarrelled with Jo, if he had dared;

Gordineer was too quick a shot. He would have killed him from behind;

with tobacco. The little man took it, lighted it, and smoked on in

silence for a time undisturbed. Shon broke the silence, by a whisper to

there was trouble in the land. Do you remimber whin--"

into a wild land. We had bully sport as we went. Sometimes I heard

shots far away behind us; but Gordineer said it was my guess, for we saw

nobody. But I had a feeling. Never mind. At last we come to the Peace

River. It was in the early autumn like this, when the land is full of

like a girl's eyes; the smell of the trees is sweet like a child's

breath, and the grass feels for the foot and lifts it with a little soft

spring. We said we could live here for ever. We built this house high

up, as you see, first, because it is good to live high--it puts life in

the blood; and, as Gordineer said, it is noble to look far over the

world, every time your house-door is open, or the parchment is down from

the window. We killed wapiti and caribou without number, and cached them

for our food. We caught fish in the river, and made tea out of the brown

berry--it is very good. We had flour, a little, which we had brought

with us, and I went to Fort St. John and got more. Since then, down in

the valley, I have wheat every summer; for the Chinook winds blow across

the mountains and soften the bitter cold.

and he had lost his way. Gordineer believed him. He never lied himself.

find the place, and was going south. I know he lied. At this time I saw

that Gordineer was changed. He was slow in the head, and so, when he

began thinking up here, it made him lonely. It is always in a fine land

throat, and you sit by the fire--that you think of some woman who would

be glad to draw in and tie the strings of the tent-curtain, or fasten the

latch of the door upon you two alone."

Perhaps some memory stirred within the old man, other than that of his

dead comrade, for he sighed, muffled his mouth in his beard, and then

smiled in a distant way at the fire. The pure truth of what he said came

home to Shon M'Gann and Sir Duke Lawless; for both, in days gone by, had

sat at camp-fires in silent plains, and thought upon women from whom they

believed they were parted for ever, yet who were only kept from them for

a time, to give them happier days. They were thinking of these two women

now. They scarcely knew how long they sat there thinking. Time passes

swiftly when thoughts are cheerful, or are only tinged with the soft

melancholy of a brief separation. Memory is man's greatest friend and

At last the old man continued: "I saw the thing grew on him. He was not

differen'. A hunter thinks only of his sport. Gawdor watched him.

Gordineer's hand was steady; his nerve was all right. I have seen him

he would twist his mouth, and fire into the mortal spot. Once we were

grand shots, better than my own; and men have said I can shoot like the

devil--ha! ha!" He chuckled to himself noiselessly, and said in a

rock across the gully. It was a long shot. I did not think Gordineer

could make it; I was not sure that I could--the wind was blowing and the

range was long. But he draw up his gun like lightning, and fire all at

once. The bull dropped clean over the cliff, and tumbled dead upon the

arm, and say: 'That is enough. I am going to the hut.'

"He went away. That night he did not talk. The next morning, when I

say, 'We will be off again to the pass,' he shake his head. He would

not go. He would shoot no more, he said. I understood: it was the girl.

He was wide awake at last. Gawdor understanded also. He know that

Gordineer would go to the south--to her.

"I was sorry; but it was no use. Gawdor went with me to the pass. When

we come back, Jo was gone. On a bit of birch-bark he had put where he

was going, and the way he would take. He said he would come back to me

--ah, the brave comrade! Gawdor say nothing, but his looks were black.

and go out. He did not come back.

first went by my head; the second caught me along the ribs, but not to

great hurt. Still, I fell from the shock, and lost some blood. It was

Gawdor; he thought he had killed me.

"When I come to myself I bound up the little furrow in the flesh, and

start away. I know that Gawdor would follow Gordineer. I follow him,

knowing the way he must take. I have never forget the next night.

I had to travel hard, and I track him by his fires and other things.

When sunset come, I do not stop. I was in a valley, and I push on.

There was a little moon. At last I saw a light ahead-a camp-fire, I

know. I was weak, and could have dropped; but a dread was on me.

"I come to the fire. I saw a man lying near it. Just as I saw him, he

was trying to rise. But, as he did so, something sprang out of the

shadow upon him, at his throat. I saw him raise his hand, and strike it

with a knife. The thing let go, and then I fire--but only scratched, I

think. It was a puma. It sprang away again, into the darkness. I ran

to the man, and raised him. It was my friend. He looked up at me and

stabbed, and he fell. He saw that it was Gawdor. He had been left for

the puma come also. It is the best men who have such luck. I have seen

it often. I used to wonder they did not curse God."

He crossed himself and mumbled something. Lawless rose, and walked up

eyes were wet. Shon kept blowing into his closed hand and blinking at

the fire. Pourcette got up and took down the gun from the chimney. He

for days. I know that he would go and get someone, and go back to the

gold. I thought at last I had missed him; but no. I had made up my mind

what to do when I found him. One night, just as the moon was showing

over the hills, I come upon him. I was quiet as a puma. I have a stout

over the fire, as Gordineer did, I sprang upon him, clasping him about

the neck, and bringing him to the ground. He could not get me off. I am

small, but I have a grip. Then, too, I had one hand at his throat. It

was no use to struggle. The cord and a knife were in my teeth. It was a

great trick, but his breath was well gone, and I fastened his hands. It

was no use to struggle. I tied his feet and legs. Then I carried him to

a tree and bound him tight. I unfastened his hands again and tied them

round the tree. Then I built a great fire not far away. He begged at

first and cried. But I was hard. He got wild, and at last when I leave

him he cursed! It was like nothing I ever heard. He was a devil. . .

I come back after I have carry the message to the poor girl--it is a sad

thing to see the first great grief of the young! Gawdor was not there.

the throat of my friend. I hunted the woods where it had happened,

north. At last I got back here. From here I have hunted and killed them

slow; but never that one with a wound in the shoulder from Jo's knife.

Still, I can wait. There is nothing like patience for the hunter and

He paused, and Lawless spoke. "And when you have killed that puma,

Pourcette--if you ever do-what then?"

Pourcette fondled the gun, then rose and hung it up again before he

replied.

"Then I will go to Fort St. John, to the girl--she is there with her

father--and sell all the skins to the factor, and give her the money."

He waved his hand round the room. "There are many skins here, but I have

more cached not far away. Once a year I go to the Fort for flour and

bullets. A dog-team and a bois-brule bring them, and then I am alone as

before. When all that is done I will come back."

"Then I will hang that one skin over the chimney where his gun is--and go

shall be killed. A million pumas and their skins are not worth the life

of my friend."

Lawless looked round the room, at the wooden cup, the gun, the

and touched Pourcette on the shoulder.

searched for him to travel with us. He would have done so, I think, for

we had sport and trouble of one kind and another together. And he would

have asked you to come also. Well, do so, little man. We haven't told

you our names. I am Sir Duke Lawless, and this is Shon M'Gann."

Pourcette nodded: "I do not know how it come to me, but I was sure from

the first you are his friends. He speak often of you and of two others

--where are they?"

Lawless replied, and, at the name of Pretty Pierre, Shon hid his forehead

in his hand, in a troubled way. "And you will come with us," said

Lawless, "away from this loneliness?"

"It is not lonely," was the reply. "To hear the thrum of the pigeon, the

whistle of the hawk, the chatter of the black squirrel, and the long cry

of the eagle, is not lonely. Then, there is the river and the pines--all

music; and for what the eye sees, God has been good; and to kill pumas is

perhaps not, you shall find."

immovably on things--call it madness, what you will. In busy life we

have no real or lasting dreams, no ideals. We have to go to the primeval

hills and the wild plains for them. When we leave the hills and the

He was a poor man, and it would be a joyful thing for him if one day he

could empty ample gold into his wife's lap. Lawless was not greedy, but

he and good gold were not at variance.

"See," said Shon, "the valley's the thing. We can hunt as we go, and if

there's gold for the scrapin', why, there y'are--fill up and come again.

If not, divil the harm done. So here's thumbs up to go, say I. But I

wish, Lawless, I wish that I'd niver known how Jo wint off, an' I wish

we were all t'gither agin, as down in the Pipi Valley."

"There's nothing stands in this world, Shon, but the faith of comrades

and the truth of good women. The rest hangs by a hair. I'll go to the

valley with you. It's many a day since I washed my luck in a gold-pan."

go again. "I will take you to-morrow." Then he spread skins upon the

The next morning, just as the sun came laboriously over the white peak of

three started. For many hours they crept along the side of the mountain,

plain stretched out. It was Pourcette's little farm. Its position was

such that it caught the sun always, and was protected from the north and

They pushed on. Towards the end of the day they came upon a little herd

of caribou, and had excellent sport. Lawless noticed that Pourcette

seemed scarcely to take any aim at all, so swift and decisive was his

the journey again. For four days they travelled and hunted alternately.

Pourcette had shot two mountain lions, but they had seen no pumas.

On the morning of the fifth day they came upon the valley where the gold

was. There was no doubt about it. A beautiful little stream ran through

it, and its bed was sprinkled with gold--a goodly sight to a poor man

like Shon, interesting enough to Lawless. For days, while Lawless and

Pourcette hunted, Shon laboured like a galley-slave, making the little

specks into piles, and now and again crowning a pile with a nugget. The

fever of the hunter had passed from him, and another fever was on him.

The others urged him to come away. The winter would soon be hard on

them; he must go, and he and Lawless would return in the spring.

bag wound about his body. It was heavy, and he could not travel fast.

the others. He stayed and dreamed of his good fortune, and of his home.

In the late afternoon he lay down in the sun beside the camp-fire and

fell asleep from much thinking. Lawless and Pourcette had little

and turned back to camp at last, without fret, like good sportsmen. At a

point they separated, to come down upon the camp at different angles, in

the hope of still getting a shot. The camp lay exposed upon a platform

of the mountain.

Lawless came out upon a ledge of rock opposite the camp, a gulch lying

between. He looked across. He was in the shadow, the other wall of the

gulch was in the sun. The air was incomparably clear and fresh, with an

autumnal freshness. Everything stood out distinct and sharply outlined,

nothing flat or blurred. He saw the camp, and the fire, with the smoke

quivering up in a diffusing blue column, Shon lying beside it. He leaned

upon his rifle musingly. The shadows of the pines were blue and cold,

but the tops of them were burnished with the cordial sun, and a glacier-

field, somehow, took on a rose and violet light, reflected, maybe, from

almost equal distance from him and Shon, upon a small peninsula of rock,

a strange thing was happening. Old Pourcette was kneeling, engaged with

defined, looking larger than usual. Clear space and air soft with colour

there crept an animal. It seemed to Lawless that he could see the lithe

stealthiness of its muscles and the ripple of its skin. But that was

Pourcette, for whom no aid could come, though two men stood watching the

great fight--Shon M'Gann, awake now, and Lawless--with their guns silent

in their hands. They dare not fire, for fear of injuring the man, and

they could not reach him in time to be of help.

There against the weird solitary sky the man and the puma fought. When

the animal dropped on him, Pourcette caught it by the throat with both

hands, and held back its fangs; but its claws were furrowing the flesh of

his breast and legs. His long arms were of immense strength, and though

the pain of his torn flesh was great he struggled grandly with the beast,

and bore it away, from his body. As he did so he slightly changed the

position of one hand. It came upon a welt-a scar. When he felt that,

new courage and strength seemed given him. He gave a low growl like an

animal, and then, letting go one hand, caught at the knife in his belt.

As he did so the puma sprang away from him, and crouched upon the rock,

making ready for another leap. Lawless and Shon could see its tail

curving and beating. But now, to their astonishment, the man was the

He came slowly upon the puma. Lawless could see the hard glitter of his

fingers were again at the puma's throat, and they swayed together, the

claws of the beast making surface havoc. But now as they stood up, to

the eyes of the fearful watchers inextricably mixed, the man lunged again

The puma loosened, quivered, fell back dead. The man rose to his feet

with a cry, and his hands stretched above his head, as it were in a kind

of ecstasy. Shon forgot his gold and ran; Lawless hurried also.

When the two men got to the spot they found Pourcette binding up his

wounds. He came to his feet, heedless of his hurts, and grasped their

hands. "Come, come, my friends, and see," he cried.

He pulled forward the loose skin on the puma's breast and showed them the

scar of a knife-wound above the one his own knife had made.

"I've got the other murderer," he said; "Gordineer's knife went in here.

Sacre, but it is good!"

which was to hang above the fireplace, Pourcette prepared to go to Fort

proceeds to the girl.

here. If you will come with us after, we will go to the Fort with you.

sport and riches."

You are good men. I'll remember you, but I can't go with you--no.

"Some day you would leave me to go to the women who wait for you, and then

I should be alone again. I will not change--vraiment!"

On the morning they left, he took Jo Gordineer's cup from the shelf, and

from a hidden place brought out a flask half filled with liquor. He

poured out a little in the cup gravely, and handed it to Lawless, but

Lawless gave it back to him.

"You must drink from it," he said, "not me."

He held out the cup of his own flask. When each of the three had a

share, the old man raised his long arm solemnly, and said in a tone so

gentle that the others hardly recognised his voice: "To a lost comrade!"

They drank in silence.

where they must lose sight of him, they looked for the last time. He was

alone with his solitary hills, leaning on his rifle. They fired two

shots into the air. They saw him raise his rifle, and two faint reports

as the shining glacier; never to leave them.

In silence the two rounded the cliff, and saw him no more.

THE TRAIL OF THE SUN DOGS

Swell, you see," said Jacques Parfaite, as he gave Whiskey Wine, the

leading dog, a cut with the whip and twisted his patois to the uses of

narrative, "he has been alone there at the old Fort for a long time. I

remember when I first see him. It was in the summer. The world smell

and myself have come to the Fort on our way to the Mackenzie River. In

under the doors and windows; the Fort have not been use for a long time.

Once there was plenty of buffalo near, and the caribou sometimes; but

when the seasons were the best. The Company have close the Post; it did

empty fort. We know dam' well there is food buried in the yard or under

the floor, and it would be droll to open the place for a day--Lost Man's

Jacques cocked his head on one side and shook it wisely and mysteriously.

"Tres bien, we trailed through the long grass, pried open the shutters

and door, and went in. It is cool in the north of an evening, as you

up the floor, and we found good things. Holy! but it was a feast. We

had a little rum also. As we talk and a great laugh swim round, there

come a noise behind us like shuffling feet. We got to our legs quick.

Mon Dieu, a strange sight! A man stand looking at us with something in

his face that make my fingers cold all at once--a look--well you would

think it was carved in stone--it never change. Once I was at Fort Garry;

the Church of St. Mary is there. They have a picture in it of the great

scoundrel Judas as he went to hang himself. Judas was a fool--what was

thirty dollars!--you give me hunder' to take you to the Barren Grounds.

Pah!"

The half-breed chuckled, shook his head sagely, swore half-way through

He was starving. Yes, it was so; but I nearly laugh. It was spring--

you like a man.

eyes had been cast. The sun was shining hard just then, and the stern,

insolent harshness. Day perched garishly there. Yet now and then the

staring light was broken by sudden and deep shadows--great fissures in

the rocks and lanes between. These gave Pierre a suggestion, though why,

he could not say. He knew that when men live lives of patient, gloomy

vigilance, they generally have something to watch and guard. Why should

Gaspard remain here year after year? His occupation was nominally a

pilot in a bay rarely touched by vessels, and then only for shelter.

A pilot need not take his daily life with such brooding seriousness.

In body he was like flexible metal, all cord and muscle. He gave the

impression of bigness, though he was small in stature. Yet, as Pierre

studied him, he saw something that made him guess the man had had about

him one day a woman, perhaps a child; no man could carry that look

unless. If a woman has looked at you from day to day, something of her,

some reflection of her face, passes to yours and stays there; and if a

of a woman or a child, when, no matter how compelling his cue to remember

where a man is concerned, he will yield it up in the end to time.

there was a woman, maybe a child once; there was some sorrowful mystery

eyes strangely; there was the bay with that fantastic "finger of the

devil" stretching up from the bowels of the world. Behind the symbol lay

finger of the devil--was it not real? A finger of rock, waiting as the

old man said--for what?

Gaspard touched his shoulder. He rose and went with him into the gloomy

sat smoking till night fell. Then the pilot lit a fire, and drew his

rough chair to the door. Though it was only late summer, it was cold in

the shade of the cliff. Long time they sat. Now and again Pierre

intercepted the quick, elusive glance of his silent host. Once the pilot

took the pipe from his mouth, and leaned his hands on his knees as if

about to speak. But he did not.

Pierre saw that the time was ripe for speech. So he said, as though he

knew something: "It is a long time since it happened?"

Gaspard, brooding, answered: "Yes, a long time--too long." Then,

as if suddenly awakened to the strangeness of the question, he added,

forehead," but there is a thing--I am not sure what. There was a woman--

Gaspard got to his feet, and peered into Pierre's immobile face. Their

eyes met.

"Mon Dieu!" said the pilot, his hand catching the smoke away from

between them, "you are a droll man; you have a wonderful mind. You are

cold like ice, and still there is in you a look of fire."

"Sit down," answered Pierre quietly, "and tell me all. Perhaps I could

think it out little by little; but it might take too long--and what is

the good?"

Slowly Gaspard obeyed. Both hands rested on his knees, and he stared

abstractedly into the fire. Pierre thrust forward the tobacco-bag. His

hand lifted, took the tobacco, and then his eyes came keenly to Pierre's.

He was about to speak. . . . "Fill your pipe first," said the half-breed

coolly. The old man did so abstractedly. When the pipe was lighted,

Pierre said: "Now!"

know, I have it here"--he put his hand to his forehead, as did Pierre--

"She was fine to see. Her eyes were black as beads; and when she laugh

Coudres, far up there at Quebec. It was a wild place. There were

God among all. I was lucky man. I was pilot, and took ships out to sea,

and brought them in safe up the gulf. It is not all easy, for there are

He paused and caught his hand over his mouth as though to stop a sound:

the lines of his face deepened. Presently he puffed his pipe so hard

that the smoke and the sparks hid him in a cloud through which he spoke.

your own child in yours, and looked at the mother, as she lies there all

pale and shining between the quilts?"

He paused. Pierre's eyes dropped to the floor. Gaspard continued:

"Well, it is a great thing, and the babe was born quick one day when we

were all alone. A thing like that gives you wonder. Then I could not

bear to go away with the ships, and at last I said: 'One month, and then

the ice fills the gulf, and there will be no more ships for the winter.

That will be the last for me. I will be pilot no more-no.' She was ver'

happy, and a laugh ran over her little white teeth. Mon Dieu, I stop

that laugh pretty quick--in fine way!"

iron smouldering from the bellows.

pilot. You must come with me and bring the child, and they will put us

off at Father Point, and then we will come back slow to the village on

the good Ste. Anne and live there ver' quiet.' When I say that to her

eyes, and speak--nom de Dieu! she speak so gentle and light--and say to

the child: 'Would you like go with your father a pretty journey down the

gulf?' And the little child laugh back at her, and shake its soft brown

hair over its head. They were both so glad to go. I went to the captain

of the ship. I say to him, 'I will take my wife and my little child, and

when we come to Father Point we will go ashore.' Bien, the captain laugh

big, and it was all right. That was long time ago--long time."

He paused again, threw his head back with a despairing toss, his chin

dropped on his breast, his hands clasped between his knees, and his pipe,

laid beside him on the bench, was forgotten.

Pierre quietly put some wood upon the fire, opened his kit, drew out

from it a little flask of rum and laid it upon the bench beside the pipe.

and took one long swallow before he began to fill and light his pipe.

story.

storm came out of the north. We thought it would pass, but it stayed on.

running like hills to the shore, and no boat could live between the ship

and the point. For myself, it was nothing--I am a strong man and a great

take my child, my little Babette, and play with her as she roll on the

deck--merci, it was gran'! So I say to my wife:

"'This will be bon voyage for all.' But a woman, she has not the mind

woman laugh too, but there come a little quick sob to her lips. You ask

her why, and she cannot tell. She know that something will happen. A

man has great idee, a woman great sight. So my wife, she turn her face

away all sad from me then, and she was right--she was right!

"One day in the ocean we pass a ship--only two days out. The ship signal

us. I say to my wife: 'Ha, ha! now we can go back, maybe, to the good

Ste. Anne.' Well, the ships come close together, and the captain of the

other ship he have something importan' with ours. He ask if there will

be chance of pilot into the gulf, because it is the first time that he

visit Quebec. The captain swing round and call to me. I go up. I bring

my wife and my little Babette; and that was how we sail back to the great

something strange in her eyes. I ask her why; she do not know, but she

Quebec?' I tell him yes. 'Well,' he say, 'do you know of a bay where few

ships enter safe?' I think a moment and I tell him of Belle Amour. Then

he say, ver' quick: 'That is the place; we will go to the bay of Belle

berth, plenty to eat and drink, and once more I laugh; but my wife--there

was in her face something I not understan'. It is not easy to understan'

a woman. We got to the bay. I had pride: I was young. I was the best

pilot in the St. Lawrence, and I took in the ship between the reefs of

the bay, where they run like a gridiron, and I laugh when I swing the

ship all ver' quick to the right, after we pass the reefs, and make a

curve round--something. The captain pull me up and ask why. But I never

tell him that. I not know why I never tell him. But the good God put

the thought into my head, and I keep it to this hour, and it never leave

me, never--never!"

He slowly rubbed his hands up and down his knees, took another sip of

rum, and went on:

to the shore. Under a little arch of rocks something was going on.

something. Then, all at once, it come to me--this is a pirate ship!

I come closer and closer to the light, and then I see a dreadful thing.

two other men--two sailors--and kill them. Then they take the bodies

I understan'. It is the old legend that a dead body will keep gold all

to itself, so that no one shall find it. Mon Dieu!"--his voice dropped

my head they make me pilot the ship out into the bay again. As we went

they make a chart of the place. We travel along the coast for one day;

and then a great storm of snow come, and the captain say to me: 'Steer

us into harbour.' When we are at anchor, they take me and my wife, and

the dreadful night, and leave us there, that we shall never tell the

secret of the gold. That night my wife and my child die in the snow."

Here his voice became strained and slow. "After a long time I work my

way to an Injin camp. For months I was a child in strength, all my flesh

gone. When the spring come I went and dug a deeper grave for my wife,

and p'tite Babette, and leave them there, where they had died. But I

come to the bay of Belle Amour, because I knew some day the man with the

devil's heart would come back for his gold, and then would arrive my

time--the hour of God!"

He paused. "The hour of God," he repeated slowly. "I have waited

know--I know--that he will come. And when he comes--" He raised his arm

Pierre again placed the flask of rum between his fingers. But Gaspard

put it down, caught his arms together across his breast, and never turned

his face from the fire. Midnight came, and still they sat there silent.

had been a swivel, upon which the comedies and tragedies of others had

turned. He neither loved nor feared men: sometimes he pitied them. He

pitied Gaspard. He knew what it is to have the heartstrings stretched

out, one by one, by the hand of a Gorgon, while the feet are chained to

the rocking world.

Not till the darkest hour of the morning did the two leave their silent

watch and go to bed. The sun had crept stealthily to the door of the but

before they rose again. Pierre laid his hand upon Gaspard's shoulder as

they travelled out into the morning, and said: "My friend, I understand.

Your secret is safe with me; you shall take me to the place where the

gold is buried, but it shall wait there until the time is ripe. What is

gold to me? Nothing. To find gold--that is the trick of any fool. To

win it or to earn it is the only game. Let the bodies rot about the

I will stay with you. Who can tell--perhaps it is near at hand--the hour

The huge hard hand of Gaspard swallowed the small hand of Pierre, and, in

I have told you all, as I have never told it to my God. I do not fear

trust you. Some time you also have had the throat of a man in your

fingers, and watched the life spring out of his eyes, and leave them all

Together they journeyed down the crag and along the beach to the place

where the gold, the grim god of this world, was fortressed and bastioned

by its victims.

lived together. Little speech passed between them, save that speech

of comrades, who use more the sign than the tongue. It seemed to Pierre

after a time that Gaspard's wrongs were almost his own. Yet with this

difference: he must stand by and let the avenger be the executioner;

he must be the spectator merely.

Sometimes he went inland and brought back moose, caribou, and the skins

of other animals, thus assisting Gaspard in his dealings with the great

Company. But again there were days when he did nothing but lie on the

skins at the hut's door, or saunter in the shadows and the sunlight. Not

since he had come to Gaspard had a ship passed the bay or sought to

anchor in it.

grass showing. The moss on the rocks had changed from brown to green,

morning they sat in the sun looking out upon the gulf. Presently Gaspard

rose and went into the hut. Pierre's eyes still lazily scanned the

water. As he looked he saw a vessel rounding a point in the distance.

him. His eyes drew away from the indistinct craft--first to the reefs,

and then to that spot where the colossal needle stretched up under the

water. It was as Pierre speculated. Brigond, the French pirate, who had

hidden his gold at such shameless cost, was, after twenty years in the

galleys at Toulon, come back to find his treasure. He had doubted little

that he would find it. The lonely spot, the superstition concerning dead

bodies, the supposed doom of Gaspard, all ran in his favour. His little

craft came on, manned by as vile a mob as ever mutinied or built a

wrecker's fire.

When the ship got within a short distance of the bay, Pierre rose and

called. Gaspard came to the door. "There's work to do, pilot," he said.

Gaspard felt the thrill of his voice, and flashed a look out to the gulf.

He raised his hands with a gasp. "I feel it," he said: "it is the hour

He started to the rope ladder of the cliff, then wheeled suddenly and

watch; you shall see great things." His voice had a round, deep tone.

He caught both Pierre's hands in his and added: "It is for my wife and

Corraine say to him--but no, it is no matter--there is One greater!"

Once again he caught Pierre hard by the shoulder, then ran to the cliff

and swung down the ladder. All at once there shot through Pierre's body

bay, or to take small boats and make for the shore. He remembered the

reefs, but he did not know of the needle of rock. Presently he saw

Gaspard's boat coming. "Someone who knows the bay," he said; "I see a

hut on the cliff."

"Hello, who are you?" Brigond called down as Gaspard drew alongside.

"A Hudson's Bay Company's man," answered Gaspard.

"How many are there of you?"

"Myself alone."

"Can you pilot us in?"

"I know the way."

should reveal him. No one could have recognised him as the young pilot

Brigond clapped him on the shoulder. "How long have you lived off

there?" he asked, as he jerked his finger towards the shore.

"A good many years."

"Did anything strange ever happen there?" Gaspard felt his heart

contract again, as it did when Brigond's hand touched his shoulder.

"Nothing strange is known."

A vicious joy came into Brigond's face. His fingers opened and shut.

"Safe, by the holy heaven!" he grunted.

"'By the holy heaven!'" repeated Gaspard, under his breath.

They walked forward. Almost as they did so there came a big puff of wind

across the bay: one of those sudden currents that run in from the ocean

sudden foam. On she came past reef and bar, a pretty tumbril to the

deck and beam; she was running dead for the needle of rock.

gesture and said, in a low tone, as if only to himself: "Pardon, mon

Brigond. The pirate was startled. "What's the matter?" he said.

The waves, running high, now swept over the deck. Brigond started aft,

but Gaspard sprang before him. "Stand back!" he called. "Where you are

you die!"

Brigond, wild with terror and rage, ran at him. Gaspard caught him as he

came. With vast strength he lifted him and dashed him to the deck. "Die

there, murderer!" he cried.

Brigond crouched upon the deck, looking at him with fearful eyes. "Who-

are you?" he asked.

"I am Gaspard the pilot. I have waited for you twenty years. Up there,

in the snow, my wife and child died. Here, in this bay, you die."

There was noise and racketing behind them, but they two heard nothing.

The one was alone with his terror, the other with his soul. Once, twice,

gesture again, and folded his arms. Pierre, from the height of the

"Gaspard should have lived," he said. "But--who can tell! Perhaps

Mamette was waiting for him."

ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:

Have you ever felt the hand of your own child in yours

Memory is man's greatest friend and worst enemy

Solitude fixes our hearts immovably on things

When a man laugh in the sun and think nothing of evil

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