Labrador Days Part 9

"Draw up, draw up, and light your pipe, Mr. Norman," he interposed.

"'Tis only Home Rule tobacco, but it serves us down here."

Eagerly enough Norman accepted the proffered plug, and then relapsed into a silence which Malcolm found it hard to break. So, excusing himself for a minute, he beckoned the old folk to come into their bedroom that they might talk over the situation in private.

"He has four youngsters, and I knows they be hard up," he began. "They hasn't a chance where they are. T' neighbours blames Roderick for several little troubles which happened to t' southard, and t' traders won't advance more'n he can pay for. If it was any one else, and to-morrow wasn't Christmas, it would be just good fun to go down North with him and help haul back a barrel or so--that is, if they lets him have it."

"That's not like you, Malcolm. You can't make a man good that way, any more'n you can a dog by beatin' him," chimed in his old mother. "I guess you'll go along with him, even to-morrow, if so be he wishes it."

"S'pose I will, Mother, but--"

"Course you would," said his father proudly. "They've never known a McCrea yet on this coast that would let even a dog starve. But there's a barrel of flour in our cellar which we can live without.

Maybe it's t' kind of Christmas greeting t' poor fellow needs."

"If you says so, it's all right, Father," said Malcolm, "and, seeing it's a good hundred miles to Mr. Norman's house, I guess I'll go along, anyhow, in t' morning and let my beauties help them half-fed pups of his, or it'll be Old Christmas Day before his kids get a bite out of it."

Only the joy of the first tobacco for weeks was keeping the worn-out man from being fast asleep when Malcolm again took a chair beside him.

"I've got to make a round south to-morrow, Mr. Norman," he began, "and it would be a pity if you had to be going t' other way. Father says he has a barrel of flour in t' cellar you can have and pay for it when youse can. So if that'll suit, I'd like to give you a hand some part of t' way, especially as there'll be a few gallons of mola.s.ses to carry also if you'll take 'em."

Grat.i.tude is a rare grace. The lack of it was one of the costly defects in Roderick's character. No longer hungry, sitting before a good fire with a well-filled pipe, even the cunning which usually supplies the vacancy failed him; and Malcolm had to force himself to put down to exhaustion the ungracious way in which his real sacrifice was accepted.

In spite of hard work, they had only made thirty miles by sunset the next day, and, there being no shelter, they were obliged to camp early as light snow was falling. Yet it was a good Christmas night around the blazing fire with the special cheer the old mother had packed into the bread-boxes on their komatik. The following morning they did better, reaching the landwash of a big inlet forty miles farther south by noon. Here Malcolm had decided to turn back, for the remainder of the trail to Long Point lay practically over level ice. Just as they were saying good-bye, however, his quick eye detected something black moving out on the bay.

"A fox, Mr. Norman. Look! A fox! And a black one too. You may be able to pay for that barrel of flour before t' day's out."

They were both good furriers, and their plans were soon laid. The dogs were quickly hitched up to stumps, and, glad of a rest, were easily made to lie down. Alas, the men had only Malcolm's gun; but it was arranged that he should go out and turn the fox, and Norman, hiding at the third corner of the triangle, should try and shoot it pa.s.sing or lure it in range down wind.

Things went admirably. Malcolm by a long detour was able to turn the fox from far out without frightening it. Roderick, well hidden, and squeaking like a mouse, tolled it into easy range; and within an hour the two men held in their hands a skin worth at least four hundred dollars. It was agreed, at Roderick's suggestion, that he should carry it home, as he was nearer the fur-buyers, take the first offer over that sum, and then send the half due by the law of the woods to Malcolm north by the earliest mail-carrier.

Malcolm added as he said good-bye, "I reckon maybe Father will want to let t' barrel go as good luck on t' bargain."

Summer came, and open water with it, but the half value of that skin never arrived. Later, in reply to Malcolm's enquiry by letter, a note came to say that it was being held for a better price in the fall; and with that he had to be content.

Winter followed summer, and when once again the "going was good,"

Malcolm, "running light" with his dogs, made the journey to Long Point easily in two days. Yes, the skin was sold, but the agent had not yet sent the cash. It had brought $430 and the half would come along as soon as ever Monsieur Baillot forwarded the notes. But the winter again went by and no notes, no letters, or other news ever reached Malcolm McCrea. Six years pa.s.sed, and still they never came, and the McCreas supposed the debt was time-barred. Indeed, they had almost forgotten the whole incident.

Malcolm was still nominally at his father's house, but for three winters he had trapped on the Grand River, which flowed out into one of the bays he had discovered "down North." Here with the help of a hired man he had built up quite a fine little house, and made every preparation for that momentous life experience which usually comes early in life to every Labrador man. With characteristic caution he had waited for a good winter hunt to buy furnishings and traps. This had also given Nancy Grahame, who lived close to his home, time to get ready the needed linen and other requisites. "Clewing up" his salmon fishery in good time, Malcolm had cruised North in his own small sailboat, and till the first ice made had been very busy cutting wood, hauling food into the country for the winter tilts along his fur-path on the Grand River, completing his cellar, and safely storing his winter house supplies.

His first hunt being mostly for foxes along the landwash of the bay, he had waited until the snow came to tail his traps, judging that although it would take a week with his dogs to fetch his wife to their new home, he might safely chance that length of time away without losing anything which might be snared in the meanwhile. This was the third winter he had furred this path without interruption, and by all the custom of the coast no one would now interfere with his claim. So Malcolm started south at a stretch gallop with a light heart.

The two hundred and odd miles to the rendezvous at his father-in-law's winter home in the woods were covered with only two nights out, and that when the trails were as yet hardly broken and the young ice on the rivers would surely have delayed any man with less determination.

The wedding was in real Labrador style. Every one from far and near was present, quite without the formality of an invitation. It would, indeed, be an ill omen for the future if any one were omitted through the miscarriage of an invitation. So the danger is averted by the grapevine telegraph, which simply signals the event in sufficient time to make it a man's own fault if he is not present. Malcolm had many friends and there had been great preparations in Capelin Bay. Every sc.r.a.p of room was needed to accommodate the guests, and at night hardly an inch of floor s.p.a.ce but lodged some sleeping form wrapped in a four-point blanket, while the hardier ones with sleeping-bags contentedly crawled into them out in the snow, as their fashion is when nothing better offers.

The cooking had to be done in two large net-barking cauldrons over open fires under the trees; and as the fall deer hunt had been successful, and pork had not in those days a.s.sumed the present impossible prices, there were all kinds of joints, and no limit to proteids and carbohydrates. The great plum puddings which served for wedding cakes were pulled out of the same boiling froth, tightly wrapped in their cloth jackets, with long fish "pews" or forks.

Unlimited spruce beer, brewed with mola.s.ses and fortified with "Old Jamaica," flowed from a large barrel during the two days that the celebration lasted.

At twenty below zero a slight increase in the calories consumed or even in the excess of alcohol over the normal two per cent of spruce beer leaves little trace on hardy folk; and when on the third morning, McCrea and his bride fared forth behind their splendid dog-team, every guest was gathered at the starting-point to "whoop up" the departing couple.

"'T is early I'll be starting in t' morning, Nancy, for it's nigh a fortnight since I tailed my traps, and there were good signs, too, by t' boiling brooks," said Malcolm the first evening they arrived home.

"A fox following t' landwash from t' rattle must surely take t' path there, for t' cliff fair shoulders him off t' land, and t' ice isn't fast more'n a foot or so from t' bluff. 'T would be a pity to lose a good skin, and us just starting in housekeeping."

"What's right's right, Malcolm," answered his wife, pouting just perceptibly. "Us must end our honeymoon with the journey down. I'll not be lonely, I reckon, getting t' house to rights." And she laughed gayly as she noticed the results of Malcolm's sincere but unique attempts at furnishing.

"It'll be a ration of pork I'll be needing boiled, and a bun or two for my nonny-bag. I can cover t' path in two days so be t' going's good; but there's nothing like being prepared."

"Get a few more splits, then, boy," she replied, "and I'll be cutting t' pork t' while." For she knew that Malcolm's estimate of the supply necessary for a possible delay was not the preparedness which would satisfy her ideas.

Days are short in November in the North, and the moon was still up to see Malcolm picking his way along the unmade trail which led to the spot where the sea ice joined the "ballicaters" or heaped-up sh.o.r.e ice. In the late fall this is the happy hunting-ground of foxes, for a much-needed dinner is often to be picked up in the shape of some enfeebled auk or other sea-bird, while even a dead shark or smaller fish may be discovered.

This was only a brief fall hunt. Malcolm had some fifty traps over ten miles of country, all of which he would take up the following month when the sea ice froze on permanently to the sh.o.r.e, re-tailing them along his real fur-path up the Grand River along the bank of which he had no less than three small shacks some thirty miles apart. Here he made his long winter hunt for sables, otters, and lynxes, using nearly three hundred traps.

It was with keen expectation and brisk step that he now strode along over the open; only the unwritten law of silence for a trapper on his path prevented his whistling as he went. When pa.s.sing through the long belt of woods which marks the edge of the river delta, he found numerous windfalls blocking his narrow trail; but, keyed up as he was, he managed to get by them without so much as rustling a twig. "I'm fending for two now," he said to himself, and the very thought was sweet, lending zest to the matching of his capacities against those of the wild.

There was nothing in his first two traps. He hadn't expected anything.

They were only a sort of outliers in case something went wrong with those in the sure places. But now he was nearing the Narrows, and already his fence running from the steep bluff to the river edge was visible. But there was no fox in number three. The trap had not been sprung. The bait was as he had left it. "Maybe there'll be more to t'

eastward," he thought, "though there were signs on this side of t'

river." And, resetting the trap, he plodded along farther on his round.

Midday came. He had pa.s.sed no less than fifteen of his best traps, and not only had no fox been found, but not one trap was sprung or one bait taken.

Malcolm stood meditatively scratching his head by trap twenty.

"Something's wrong," he said to himself,--"but what? Better boil t'

kettle and think it over. Perhaps better luck after lunch."

Unstringing his tomahawk, he started to find some dry wood with which to kindle a fire. None being close to the beach, he walked a few yards into the forest, and had just commenced on a tree when he noticed by the white scar that a branch had been broken quite recently from the very same trunk. "Wind and t' weight of t' silver thaw," he supposed, for there was no one living within fifty miles, and no other fur-path at that time, anyhow, in the bay. The northern komatik trail crossed twenty miles seaward, where the calm, wide expanse made the ice much safer in the early winter than near the swift current at the river mouth. But as he stooped to clear the trunk for his own axe, he noticed that, though disguised as a break, a cut had been first made to weaken the bough. "Some one's been here, that's sure," he said to himself. "Who can it be?" So much snow had fallen since Malcolm had gone after his wife that it was no easy matter to guess an answer--much less to read it from the trails around.

His frugal meal finished, he sat meditatively smoking his pipe by the glowing embers of his generous fire. But no light came to him.

Practically no one lived near. The few who did were as honest as daylight. He had not an enemy on earth so far as he knew; and yet he realized now that the good condition of his traps, and especially his baits, after a fortnight of the bl.u.s.terous Labrador fall weather needed accounting for. Well, anyhow, there was only one thing to do--go and finish his round, and when he got back he could talk the trouble over with his wife.

Slipping on his snow racquets and once more shouldering his nonny-bag, he strode off toward his next trap. It was new to him to suspect men.

It was his business as a trapper to suspect Nature. It was, however, from this new viewpoint that he must approach his next task. For therein lies the intense interest of the trapper's life--every moment affords a keen problem. The gambler has the excitement of a possible big return, a sudden acquisition of gain. The trapper has all that, and the added satisfaction of knowing that it is his ability and not merely his luck which has won out.

At first sight there seemed nothing amiss with trap twenty-one. It had been tailed on the top of a specially felled tree. There it was still--a little mound of snow above the great expanse of whiteness, only recognizable because a trapper knows every inch of his path as a priest does his breviary. True, as the surface snow was only two days old, many marks could not be expected upon it. All the same, it struck Malcolm as odd that not a single fox-footing had he sighted since leaving home. "Something must have been cleaning 'em up," he reasoned.

"There were two broods on Whale Island and one at least on t' Isle of Hope. That's some twenty all told--and ne'er a wolf or lynx track out to t' landward t' year." Musing to himself, he knelt down by the trap to examine it more closely. Lifting it up, he blew off the loose snow and inspected the stump carefully. No, nothing to indicate that it had been moved. If it had been, it must have been replaced with consummate care; for the rain had fallen once since Malcolm had tailed it, and the trap lay exactly in the icy trough, its handle and chain lying in the same groove. But the very fact suggested an idea. Possibly, if he cleared the snow there might be a frozen footmark in the hard surface beneath. Carefully, handful by handful, he removed over a foot of snow from around the bottom of the old tree, till he felt with his fingers the frozen crust. It took him over an hour's cold, tedious work, for he feared to use a mitten to protect his hand lest he should destroy the very traces of which he was in search. Though it froze his fingers and meant a long delay, it was well worth while, for he had undeniable evidence of a man's footmark, without any racquet, made since the rain previous to the last snowfall. It was probably at least a week old.

Again he examined the trap carefully. Not a hair, not a blood mark, not a sign to show that any fox had been in it. If it had been robbed, an expert had done it. There was another chance, however. Using his racquet as a spade, Malcolm was soon at work clearing the snow away right around the roots. The chain was a long one, and driven into one of the leaders was a steel fastener. It was as he expected. Not only had the chain been obviously gnawed, but there was considerable chafing of the bark as well. "He's been in it, sure enough, but the question is, Who's got t' skin?" Dark was coming on. There was no use going back; so, cutting down a few boughs and making a small lean-to under a big spruce, Malcolm kindled a blazing fire, "cooked the kettle," and turned in for the night.

Nancy had seen her husband as soon as he crossed the shoulder of the hill on his home-coming the third morning. To tell the truth, it was her first experience of being quite alone in the forest, and she had been doing but little "furnishing" after the first night. Now she was sure he had made a fine haul, and hurried out to meet him and hear the news. Malcolm, with the canniness of his kind, at once told her he had had no luck.

Now the actual amount of money lost may not have been great, but it had the irritating feature of being an unknown quant.i.ty and the additional vague risk of making all his winter work fruitless. It is useless to set traps if some one else is to follow around and rob them. So that night he told his wife the whole story. Discuss it as they would, there was no clue of any kind to follow; so like wise folk they decided to go on their way as if nothing had happened, keeping their mouths shut and their eyes and ears open.

No one visited their bay before Malcolm went on his first long fur round, which he did earlier than was his wont in order to be back in time for the first of the two winter mails. This trip he made a much better hunt, setting his traps as he went into the country. He took good care to make long marches, and even one day to double back on his tracks, making a long detour to see if he might not possibly pick up some unexpected signs of another man on _his_ path. His, because, although there is no law on the subject, custom is law on Labrador, and the man who first finds a new trail for trapping has a conceded right of at least a mile in width for just as far as he cares to go.

The whole round was made in ten days, and, coming back with six sables, two otter, and a few mink and ermine, he was fortunate enough to reach home some hours before the southern mail team.

"What's t' news, Pat?" he asked, when at last supper was over, and the final pipe was being discussed by the fire.

"Nothing to boast of," was the answer. "T' same old story, with some a feast and with some a famine. They do say Roderick Norman's luck seems to have turned at last. T' Company gave he over four hundred dollars for a dark silver he got, and as much more, some say, for a batch o'