The Gaunt Gray Wolf Part 31

asked Shad.

"Aye, 'tis th' Lard brings things t' happen," admitted Bob.

"Now, Bob, listen to me. I came here in the first place just to enjoy a pleasant summer's outing. Pleasure and good times were all I ever thought of, and I knew nothing of life or life's higher motives. I doubt if I could have earned my own bread if I had been turned loose in the world empty-handed, because I hadn't the power or patience to stick to a thing or to face discouraging conditions for any length of time.

"I did not know the meaning of the word toil; I did not know what privation meant, or the suffering that comes through privation. I had always had whatsoever my fancy craved, and had never known want or disappointment.

"Here in your country, Bob, I have experienced toil. I have been tried out in the furnace fire of physical suffering and mental agony, and I have learned what sympathy means.

"I am living to-day only because Manikawan, an Indian girl, made it possible by the sacrifice of her own life for me to live. I'd have given up and thrown myself down in the snow to die a hundred times but for the encouragement she gave me to keep going, for I was constantly possessed of a desire to seek the rest and peace of death. And those poor Indians shared with me, Bob, the little they had, when they might easily have left me to perish.

"Do you know, Bob, there has not been a night since she died that I have not dreamed of Manikawan? She seems to say to me: 'I gave my life for yours. Go forth and make your life useful--offer a helping hand to others. It is in your power to guard my people from starvation.' So, Bob, I've got to do it if I am ever to have peace of mind, and you've got to help me.

"Do you think that these things just happened, Bob? Or were they brought about by Divine direction? Don't you think that this combination of incidents points out to us our life work? Don't you think they suggest that we are to unite our talents and so use them that we shall not only help ourselves but help others? Come, Bob, what do you say?"

For a moment Bob did not speak, and when he did his voice betrayed deep emotion.

"Th' way you puts un, Shad, I'm thinkin', now, you'm right. 'Tis th'

Lard's way o' bringin' things about. You'm wonderful good, Shad, t'

think o' me for a partner, an' I'll be wonderful proud t' be partners with you, Shad."

"That's the way to talk, old man!" exclaimed Shad, grasping Bob's hand.

"I'm not knowin' how t' thank you, Shad," replied Bob, his heart overflowing.

"That feeling is reciprocated, Bob, so we won't either of us thank the other. Now we've agreed to our partnership, we'll have plenty of time to arrange the details of our business before we go to the Bay, and then I think you'll have to make a trip to St. Johns or Boston with me to have the co-partnership agreement drawn and executed in proper legal form."

Shad explained to Bob that at the time of his birth his grandfather set aside one hundred thousand dollars to be held in trust for his benefit. It was provided that the income of this trust fund was to be paid to his guardian annually, upon his birthday, to be applied to his immediate needs, or to const.i.tute an annual allowance of spending money, until he attained his majority, when he was to receive the princ.i.p.al.

"But I've never spent any of Grandfather's allowance," said Shad.

"Father got me everything I needed and kept me supplied with spending money, and every year when the income from the trust fund came in Father bought government bonds with it and placed the bonds in a safety deposit vault for me.

"These bonds amount to more than the princ.i.p.al of the trust fund now--I don't know just how much, but I know there's considerably more than one hundred thousand dollars, for they have been earning interest all these years.

"This money is mine to use as I see fit, and I'm going to invest one hundred thousand dollars of it in our partnership and hold the balance as a reserve. Of course my sister will have to act for me until I'm of age. She's ten years older than I am, and has been my guardian since Father died. She'll not object, for she has a great deal of confidence in my judgment.

"When Father died, nearly three years ago, he left me a snug fortune, and I have plenty to live on even if our trading venture doesn't prove a money-making business at first."

"'Tis a wonderful lot o' money!" declared Bob. "More'n I can think!"

"We'll need a pretty fair capital to succeed," said Shad. "We'll have to purchase a vessel of some sort to carry on trade along the outer coast, and bring our supplies to the Bay, and carry to market our furs, fish, and oil. You'll look after the native trade, with the men you employ to help you, but I'll have to engage expert a.s.sistance in purchasing the trading goods and disposing of the products to the best advantage until I finish college and learn my end of the business. All will cost money, though I hope when we once get started we'll build up a trade that will warrant it."

Bob went to his bunk that night with his head all awhirl. The amount of capital which Shad proposed to put into their partnership, and the extensive business which he proposed to build up, were too big and too wonderful for Bob to comprehend all at once.

A substantial structure had indeed taken the place of his tumbled air castles, though it was long before he could bring himself to realise that this structure was not, after all, another and greater air castle than those which had been destroyed.

XXIX

THE FRUIT OF MANIKAWAN'S SACRIFICE

At length the break-up came, much as it always comes in that country.

The sun, grown strong and bold, vanquished the Spirit of Frost. The snow became a sea of slush, and water covered the ice of lakes and river. Finally the clouds opened, and for a week rain fell in a deluge.

A thousand new streams sprang into being, rushing in white torrents to join the swollen river. Cascades fell from every ledge and parapet.

Now and again a great boulder was loosened and went crashing down a hillside with terrifying roar. The river, freed from its ice shackles, overflowed its banks, and in the wild, unrestrained ardour of its new power uprooted trees and washed them away upon its turbulent bosom as it dashed madly seaward.

One day, when the rain had ceased and the waters had somewhat subsided, Ungava Bob and Shad Trowbridge, accompanied by Mookoomahn, turned northward in Shad's canoe to the Great Lake, following the route which Manikawan had taken several months before in her journey to the river tilt.

Manikawan's body was found as they had left it, and undisturbed. It was lowered from its rude platform, and they laid it in its final resting-place in a grave among the spruce trees not far from her father's lodge. Over the grave a cairn of boulders was raised, and surmounted by a tablet of wood upon which was carved simply the word "MANIKAWAN."

Then they parted, Mookoomahn to turn northward in his long and lonely journey to join his people, Bob and Shad to return to the river tilt, and homeward.

It was on an afternoon late in June when the browned and weather-beaten voyageurs turned their boat into Wolf Bight. What a long, long time had elapsed, it seemed to Shad, since that foggy morning in August when they had left the little cabin and said farewell to the tearful group upon the sh.o.r.e; and how homelike and restful the cabin looked now! What an age of experience had pa.s.sed since that night when Bob pulled him out of the Bay, and introduced him, shivering and wet, to its hospitable shelter and warmth.

As they approached the sh.o.r.e a glad shout was heard, and a moment later Emily--who had that very day reached home from St. Johns--and Bessie, who was there to meet her, came running to the landing, with Mrs. Gray and Richard and Douglas Campbell at their heels.

Emily laughed and cried with delight, quite smothering Bob with kisses, and when she relinquished him to her mother she kissed each of the other brown faces. Bob was quite impartial, and when his mother released him Bessie was not forgotten in his greeting.

The most important, and therefore the first piece of news to be imparted, was the partnership agreement between Shad and Bob. Douglas at once prophesied success, and when, a fortnight later, Bob and Richard took pa.s.sage with Shad to St. Johns, Douglas accompanied them as expert adviser in the selection of a trading vessel and the necessary supplies for their posts.

The firm of Trowbridge and Gray began operations with the establishment of stations in the interior, as originally designed.

d.i.c.k Blake was engaged to take charge of the post at the northerly end of the Great Lake, where he quickly built up a large and lucrative trade with both Nascaupee and Mountaineer Indians.

The river tilt was enlarged, and became a trading station and supply base for the interior, over which Ed Matheson presided.

Bill Campbell, during the open season of navigation, had command of the brigades of Indians employed to transport goods from Wolf Bight to the interior posts, and during the midwinter months conducted a sub-post and storehouse situated at the southerly end of the Great Lake, not far from Manikawan's grave.

With the interior trade in such able hands, Ungava Bob devoted his attention to the Bay trade, and it is needless to say that the trappers of the region prospered.

Richard, in command of the trim schooner "Manikawan," also opened a profitable trade with livyeres and Eskimos of the coast.

Shad Trowbridge, after graduation from college, quickly developed into an able business man, and personally attended to the purchase of supplies and the sale of products.

Trowbridge and Gray made mistakes, as was to be expected, and had their ups and downs, but in the end they succeeded, and the firm is known to-day from Boston to Hudson's Straits as one of the most honourable and substantial concerns in the North.

At the very beginning of their career Shad and Bob adopted as their trademark the picture of an Indian maiden with bow raised and arrow poised ready for its flight, and beneath it the word "Manikawan." With this constantly before them Shad declared they could never stray from the original object of their enterprise, and could never forget the lesson taught by Manikawan's heroic sacrifice. And never since the firm began business have Manikawan's people failed to receive relief in times of need, and never has there been a repet.i.tion of the awful year of starvation.

"'Tis wonderfully strange, Bessie, how things come about," Bob sometimes says to his wife, in their cosy home at St. Johns. "I used to think the Lord had forgotten me sometimes, but I always found later that those were the times He was nearest to me."

"The Lord has always been very close to you, Bob," Bessie invariably replies.

Emily, at the earnest solicitation of Shad, was permitted to finish her education in Boston under the chaperonage of Shad's sister, and developed into a charming and accomplished woman, though she never lost her love for the little cabin at Wolf Bight.

But the failures and successes of Trowbridge and Gray, and the experiences of Emily in the new and greater world which she entered, are stories by themselves, and each would require a volume to relate.