The Big Otter Part 3

About the same time there came another break in the monotony of outpost life which had, if possible, a more powerful and exciting influence on us than the arrival of the winter packet.

Now at this point I must beg the reader's pardon for asking him to go with me to a still more desolate and remote outpost than our own.

Between one and two hundred miles nearer to the pole the little post of Muskrat House lay under a beetling cliff, near the banks of an affluent of the great Saskatchewan river. It was in charge of Peter Macnab, before mentioned, who, in command of his army of six men and two women, held the post against all comers--the chief comers there being the North Wind and Jack Frost.

Poor Macnab was a jovial and sociable Scottish Highlander, who had been condemned to worse than Siberian banishment because of being one of the most active, enterprising, and pushing fellows in the service of the Fur-Traders. His ability to manage men and Indians, and to establish new trading-posts, excelled that of his fellows. He regarded it as a complimentary though trying circ.u.mstance when Mr Strang sent him to establish the post which was named by him Muskrat House, but he faced the duty--as he faced everything--like a man; did his best for his employers, and made the most of the situation.

But it is not easy for even the strongest mind and lightest heart to be jovial when buried for eight months in snow more than twelve hundred miles beyond the influences of civilised life; and it is hard to be sociable with six uneducated men and two Indian women for one's companions. Macnab tried it, however, and was in a measure successful.

He had his Bible with him--the one given him long ago by his mother--and a bound volume of Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, and three copies of the _Times_ newspaper nearly two years old, and a few numbers of an American paper called the _Picayune_.

With these materials he set to work--after each day's labour of water-drawing, firewood-cutting, and trapping was done--to educate his army in religion, politics, political economy, and the varied ramifications of social life. He had intelligent and grateful scholars.

If they had not been so, Macnab would at all events have made them obedient pupils, for he was a physically large and powerful man--and might was unavoidably right in those regions!

Still, with all his energy and resources, the genial Highlander began, towards the end of winter, to feel an intense longing for a little intercourse with his equals.

Returning one night to the solitude of his little room, as was his wont, after a couple of hours' intercourse with his men in their own house, he sat down before his stove and addressed it thus:--

"It won't last long, I fear. My brain is gradually turning into something like mashed potatoes, and my heart into a tinder-box, ready enough to catch fire, but with neither flint nor steel to light it! The Indians won't be here for many weeks, and when they do come what good can I get from or do to them? Wow! wow! it's terribly slow work. Oh!

Jessie, Jessie, my dear, what would I not give if I only had _you_ here!"

Lest the reader should suppose Macnab to be a love-sick swain, I may remark here that Jessie was a sister whom he had left on the sh.o.r.es of Loch Ness, and with whom he kept up a vigorous biennial correspondence.

As the stove made no reply, he continued his address.

"If I only had a few books now, it wouldn't be so hard to bear. To be sure, the Bible is a great resource--a blessed resource; but you see I want something light now and then. A laugh, you know, seems to be absolutely needful at times. Why, now I think of it, we wouldn't have been given the power to laugh if it hadn't been necessary, and the last hearty laugh I had was, let me see--that time three months ago, when my long-nosed interpreter mistook a dead mouse in the soup--ha! ha!--for a bit of pemmican, and only found out his mistake when the tail got between his teeth!"

The solitary man burst into peals of laughter at the reminiscence, and then, becoming suddenly grave, looked slowly round the room.

"If I could only have an echo of that," he resumed, "from somebody else!

Well, well, I'll just go and have another chat with Jessie."

So saying, Macnab rose, drew a small table near to the stove, laid upon it a very large desk made by himself of pine-wood, and, placing a sheet of paper thereon, began to write.

The sheet of paper merits notice. Like the man who wrote, it was extremely large, being several sizes bigger than foolscap, and very loosely ruled. As I have said, communication with the outer world being possible only twice in the year, our Highlander resolved, as usual, to make the most of his opportunities. Hence he not only used the largest paper which the company provided, but filled up several such sheets with the smallest possible writing, so that Jessie might ultimately get something worth having. It is but justice to add that Macnab wrote not only a very small but a remarkably clear and legible hand--a virtue which I earnestly commend to correspondents in general, to those of them at least who wish their epistles to meet with thorough appreciation.

It was late when our solitaire completed that evening's addition to his already voluminous letter, and he was thinking about going to bed when a stamping in the porch outside announced that a visitor was clearing the snow from his moccasins.

"One o' the men forgot something, I fancy," muttered Macnab to himself.

The latch was lifted, for locks were not deemed necessary in those regions, and the door opening slowly disclosed the copper-hued visage and tall bony figure of a very powerful and handsome native of the soil--perhaps I should rather say--of the snow!

"Hallo! hey! come in," shouted Macnab, giving way to a gush of his pent-up social feelings; "why it's good for sore eyes to see a new face, even a red one. What cheer? what cheer? Where d'ye hail from? Come in, come in, and welcome!"

The hearty Highlander spoke the Indian tongue fluently, but in the excitement of his feelings mingled it with a good deal of English and an occasional growl of expressive Gaelic.

The Indian, whose horned cap and person were well powdered with snow, stepped slowly over the threshold, extending his hand to the Highlander's grasp, and looking cautiously round with rolling black eyes, as if he half expected a dynamite explosion to follow his entrance. His garments bore evidence of rough usage. Holes in his moccasins permitted portions of the duffle socks underneath to wander out. Knots on his snow-shoe lines and netting told of a long rough journey, and the soiled, greasy condition of his leathern capote spoke of its having been much used not only as a garment by day but as a shirt by night.

Placing his gun and snow-shoes in a corner, after solemnly responding "watchee, watchee," to Macnab's "what cheer," the red-man seated himself on the floor beside the stove, with silent disregard of the chair that his host politely offered.

It is the custom of North American Indians--on arriving at an establishment--to withhold the most interesting portion of what they may have to communicate until after they have had a pipe, or a feed, and have answered the questions put on the less interesting objects of their visits. Being well aware of this trait of character, Macnab forebore to question too closely this fine-looking Indian until he had well thawed and smoked himself. Ultimately, however, he brought him to the point.

To the north-westward of Muskrat House, many long days' march, he said (of course in his native tongue) there was a grand country full of fine furs and fine people, who found it a very long journey indeed to come all the way to Muskrat House to trade their furs. Would his white father go and build a house there, near Lake Wichikagan, and shoot and fish, and trade?--waugh!

To which Macnab replied that he was glad to hear about the plenty of furs and the friendly natives and the fine country, and that he would take the matter into his consideration--waugh!

To this the red-man responded "ho!" and then "how!"--not interrogatively but interjectionally--with much gravity.

That night Macnab took the matter into consideration with his wonted vigour, and came to the conclusion that it was of sufficient importance to warrant a visit on his part to headquarters--Dunregan being headquarters to Muskrat House. Accordingly, he went to the men's house and introduced the stranger, whose name in the Indian tongue signified Big Otter. The men received him with as much joy as if he had been an angel of light.

"Get a sled and four of the best dogs ready to start by daybreak to-morrow," said Macnab to one of his men, "and have breakfast sharp,"

he added, turning to the cook. "You'll go with me to Dunregan, won't you, Big Otter?"

Big Otter was ready for anything at a moment's notice!

When daylight glimmered faintly in the east the following morning, Macnab sat at his table devouring venison steaks, pancakes, and tea.

Big Otter sat opposite to him, having condescended to use a chair in order to be on a level with the table. The chair gave him much anxiety, however. He evidently feared to fall off or upset it, for, on rising to reach some food opposite, he had tilted it back, and received a tremendous though unacknowledged start from the crash that followed.

Half an hour later, Macnab, having left his interpreter in charge of the establishment, was beating the track on snow-shoes through the forest, his four wolfish-looking dogs following with a sled-load of provisions and bedding, and Big Otter bringing up the rear.

The day turned out to be bright calm, and frosty. It was in thorough unison with Macnab's feelings, for the near prospect of soon meeting with men somewhat like himself produced a calm and bright condition of mind which he had not experienced for many a day. It is true that the frost can scarcely be said to have represented the Highlander's temperament; but if there be truth in the saying that extremes meet, it may be admissible to say that intense cold, which had the effect of expanding water into ice so that it rent the very rocks, might be appropriately compared with that intense warmth of Macnab's feelings which had the effect of all but bursting his very bosom! There was not a breath of air stirring when the two men pa.s.sed from the forest, and struck out upon the marble surface of the great lake which lay at the distance of about two miles from their establishment. The sun was rising at the time on the horizon of the ocean-like lake, gloriously bright and cheering, though with no appreciable warmth in its beams.

Diamonds innumerable glittered on the frosted willow-boughs; the snow under the travellers' tread gave forth that peculiar squeak, or chirping sound, which is indicative of extreme Arctic frost, and the breath from their mouths came out like the white puffs of a locomotive, settling on their b.r.e.a.s.t.s in thick h.o.a.r-frost, and silvering such of their locks as straggled out beyond the margin of their caps. There was no life at first in the quiet scene, but, just as they pa.s.sed through the last clump of bushes on the margin of the lake, a battalion of ptarmigan, seemingly a thousand strong, burst with startling whirr from under their very feet, and skimmed away like a snow-cloud close to the ground, while an Arctic fox, aroused from his lair by the noise, slank quietly off under the false belief that he had not been seen.

The rise of the ptarmigan had another effect, on which the travellers had not counted. The four wolfish dogs were so startled by the whirr, that their spirits were roused to the mischievous point. Up to that moment they had been toiling and panting through the soft snow in the woods. They had now emerged upon the hard, wind-beaten snow of the open ground and the lake. The sudden freedom in the action of their limbs, coupled with the impulse to their spirits, caused the team to bound forward with one accord. The sled swung round against Macnab's legs, and overturned him; and the tail-line was jerked out of Big Otter's grasp. In a vain effort to recover it, that solemn savage trod, with his right, on his own left snow-shoe, and plunged into a willow bush.

Thus freed altogether, the dogs went away with railway speed over the hard snow, ever urged to more and more frantic exertions by the wild boundings of the comparatively light sled behind them.

"After them, lad!" shouted Macnab, as he cast off his snow-shoes and gave chase.

The Indian followed suit in desperate haste, for his receptive mind at once perceived the all but hopeless nature of a chase after four long-legged dogs, little removed from genuine wolves, over a hard level course that extended away to the very horizon.

Happily, there was a small island not far from the sh.o.r.e of the lake, on which grew a few willow bushes whose tops protruded above the overwhelming snow, and whose buds formed the food of the ptarmigan before mentioned. Towards this island the dogs headed in their blind race just as the white man and the red began to regret the comparative slowness of human legs.

"Good luck!" exclaimed Macnab.

"Waugh!" responded his companion.

There was ground for both remarks, for, a few minutes later, the dogs plunged into the bushes and the sled stuck fast and held them.

This was a trifling incident in itself, but it shook out of the travellers any remains of lethargy that might have clung to them from the slumbers of the previous night, and caused them to face the tramp that lay before them with energy.

"Oh, you _ras_cals!" growled Macnab, as he went down on his knees beside the leading dog to disentangle the traces which had been twisted up in the abrupt stoppage.

I know not whether those dogs, being intellectually as well as physically powerful beyond their fellows, understood the uncomplimentary term and lost their tempers, but certain it is that the words were no sooner uttered than the hindmost dog made an unprovoked a.s.sault on the dog in front of it. Of course the latter defended itself. The dog next to that, being probably pugnacious, could not resist the temptation to join in, and the leader, feeling no doubt that it was "better to be out of the world than out of the fashion," fell upon the rest with remarkable fury. Thus the sled, traces, and dogs, instantly became a tumultuous ma.s.s of yelling, gasping, heaving, and twisting confusion.

Big Otter carried a short, heavy whip. Without uttering a word, he quietly proceeded to flog the ma.s.s into subjection. It was a difficult duty to perform, but Big Otter was strong and persevering. He prevailed after some time. The ma.s.s was disentangled; the subdued dogs went humbly forward, and the journey, having been thus auspiciously begun, was continued until nightfall.

They had left the lake and Muskrat House some thirty miles behind them, and had got into a thick and profoundly still part of the great wilderness, when the waning light warned them to encamp.