The Heart of Unaga Part 12

"So. Chest-fiel' Inlet. Him big water. Indian man come with much seal.

Him mak camp. Bimeby him mak big trail for Unaga. Then him find him trail. Cy an' Marcel. Him follow him trail, an' bimeby him come big, deep place. Cy an' Marcel, all gone--dead. Him dogs all gone--dead. An'

wolves eat up all flesh. Oh yes."

"How did they recognize the bones?"

"Him sled, him outfit. All 'Sleeper.' Indian man know."

"And you reckon Cy Allsh.o.r.e killed Marcel--murdered him?"

There was a sharpness in Steve's demand that suggested doubt. He did not doubt the woman's story. It was her a.s.sertion that Cy had murdered his partner. He saw no evidence for her a.s.sumption. He felt that she had given run to her own personal feelings against the man.

"That so. I tell you," An-ina returned composedly. She read his doubt and understood. "I not lie. Oh, no. Indian man wise. Sleeper man wise.

Not bad. No. They find him bones. All eat clean. They see big place.

They look an' look. No fall. Oh, no. No break 'em all up. No. Him say Marcel wise man. Cy wise man. Not care for wolf. Oh, no. So him look much. Him take him bone an' look. Him find him head--two. Maybe Marcel--maybe Cy. Him find him hole. Little hole--big hole. Same like each. Then him find gun. Two much little gun. Two big gun. Little gun him both shoot. Two time--three time. Him say big fight--plenty. So. It easy. Oh, yes. Marcel him no fight plenty. Oh, no. Him so as brother with Cy. Cy him not so. An-ina know. Cy him steal, steal, so," An-ina bent her lithe body in an att.i.tude of stealing upon a victim. "Then him little gun go--one I Marcel know. Him quick like lightning. Him brave--much brave. Then him little gun go--one. So. Both all kill up--dead."

For all the broken way of her talk, An-ina carried conviction. She knew both men. And her woman's heart and mind had read Cy Allsh.o.r.e to the dregs of what she believed was an infamous heart. Steve knew the danger of accepting her story without reserve. He was convinced of her sincerity. It would have been impossible to doubt. But----

The sound of little Marcel's piping voice reached them from the outside.

Steve turned and glanced out of the window. Oolak was bringing in his train, with its five powerful dogs. Julyman with a club was busy, with little Marcel's a.s.sistance, beating off the ferocious welcome of dogs of the post.

For a moment he watched the boy's amazing efforts. Then as the tumult subsided he turned again to the patient woman awaiting his verdict.

"You're a good woman, An-ina," he said simply. "You've told me the whole thing as you see it. Well, I guess I can't ask more. Anyway I'm camping here for the winter, an' during that time I'll need to wake some of these 'sleepers.' I've got to get out and see what happened at that 'big place.' Later on, when the snow goes, why--Say, I guess there isn't a thing to keep you and little Marcel around here--now."

CHAPTER VII

THE HARVEST OF WINTER

Steve was confronted with six months of desperate winter on the plateau of Unaga. It was an outlook that demanded all the strength of his simple faith. He was equal to the tasks lying before him, but not for one moment did he underestimate them.

For all the harshness of the life which claimed him Steve's whole nature was imbued with a saneness of sympathy, a deep kindliness of spirit that left him master of himself under every emotion. The great governing factor in his life was a strength of honest purpose. A purpose, in its turn, prompted by his sense of right and justice, and those things which have their inspiration in a broad generosity of spirit. So it was that under all conditions his conscience remained at peace.

It was supported by such feelings that he faced the tasks which the desperate heart of Unaga imposed upon him. He had the care of an orphaned child, he had the care of that child's Indian nurse, and the lives and well-being of his own two men charged up against him. He also had the investigations which he had been sent to make, and furthermore, there was his own life to be preserved for the woman he loved, and the infant child of their love, waiting for his return a thousand miles away. The work was the work of a giant rather than a man; but never for one moment did his confidence fail him.

The days following the arrival at the post were urgent. They were days of swift thought and prompt action. The open season was gone, and the struggle for existence might begin without a moment's warning. Steve knew. Everyone knew. That is, everyone except little Marcel.

The boy accepted every changing condition without thought, and busied himself with the preparations of his new friends. It had no significance for him that all day long the forest rang with the clip of the felling axe. Neither did the unceasing work of the buck-saw, as it ploughed its way through an endless stream of sapling trunks, afford him anything beyond the joy of lending his a.s.sistance. Then, too, the morning survey of the elemental prospect, when his elders searched the skies, fearing and hoping, and grimly accepting that which the fates decreed, was only one amongst his many joys. It was all a great and fascinating game, full of interest and excitement for a budding capacity which Steve was quick to recognize.

But the child's greatest delight was the moment when "Uncle Steve"

invited him to a.s.sist him in discovering the economic resources of his own home. As the examination proceeded Steve learned many things which could never have reached him through any other source. He obtained a peep into the lives of these people through the intimate eyes of the child, and his keen perception read through the tumbling, eager words to the great truths of which the child was wholly unaware. And it was a story which left him with the profoundest admiration and pity for the dead man who was the genius of it all.

Not for one moment did Steve permit a shadow to cross the child's sunny, smiling face. From the first moment when the responsibility for Marcel's little life had fallen into his hands his mind was made up. By every artifice the boy must be kept from all knowledge of the tragedy that had befallen him. When he asked for his mother he was told that she was so sick that she could not be worried. This was during the first two days. After that he was told that she had gone away. She had gone away to meet his father, and that when she came back she would bring his "pop" with her. A few added details of a fict.i.tious nature completely satisfied, and the child accepted without question that which his hero told him.

He was permitted to see nothing of the little silent cortege that left the post late on the second night. He saw nothing of the grief-laden eyes of An-ina as she followed the three men bearing their burden of the dead mother, enclosed in a coffin made out of the packing cases with which the fort was so abundantly supplied. He had seen the men digging in the forest earlier in the day, and had been more than satisfied when "Uncle Steve" a.s.sured him they were digging a well. Later on he would discover the great beacon of stones which marked the "well." But, for the moment, while the curtain was being rung down on the tragedy of his life, he was sleeping calmly, and dreaming those happy things which only child slumbers may know.

Good fortune smiled on the early efforts at the fort For ten days the arch-enemy withheld his hand. For ten days the weary sun was dragged from its rest by the evil "dogs" which seemed to dominate its movements completely. But each day their evil eyes grew more and more portentious and threatening as they watched the human labourers they seemed to regard with so much contempt.

Then came the change. It was the morning of the eleventh day. The "dogs"

had hidden their faces and the weary sun remained obscured behind a ma.s.s of grey cloud. The crisp breeze which had swept the valley with its invigorating breath had died out, and the world had suddenly become threateningly silent.

A few great snowflakes fluttered silently to the ground. Steve was at the gateway of the stockade, and his constant attendant was beside him in his bundle of furs. The man's eyes were measuring as they gazed up at the grey sky. Little Marcel was wisely studying, too.

"Maybe us has snow," he observed sapiently at last, as he watched the falling flakes.

"Yes. I guess we'll get snow."

Steve smiled down at the little figure beside him.

"Wot makes snow, Uncle Steve?" the boy demanded.

"Why, the cold, I guess. It just freezes the rain in the clouds. And when they get so heavy they can't stay up any longer, why--they just come tumbling down and makes folk sit around the stove and wish they wouldn't."

"Does us wish they wouldn't?"

"Most all the time."

The child considered deeply. Then his face brightened hopefully.

"Bimeby us digs, Uncle Steve," he said. "Boy likes digging."

Steve held out a hand and Marcel yielded his.

"Boy'll help 'Uncle Steve,' eh?"

"I's always help Uncle Steve."

The spontaneity of the a.s.surance remained unanswerable.

Steve glanced back into the enclosure. Then his hand tightened upon the boy's with gentle pressure.

"Come on, old fellow. We'll get along in, and make that stove, and--wish it wouldn't."

He led the way back to the house.

The snowfall grew in weight and density. Silent, still, the world of Unaga seemed to have lost all semblance of life. White, white, eternal white, and above the heavy grey of an overburdened sky. Solitude, loneliness, desperately complete. It was the silence which well nigh drives the human brain to madness. From minutes to hours; from inches to feet. Day and night. Day and night. Snow, snow all the time, till the tally of days grew, and the weeks slowly pa.s.sed. It almost seemed as if Nature, in her shame, were seeking to hide up the sight of her own creation.

For three silent weeks the snow continued to fall without a break. Then it ceased as abruptly as it had begun, leaving the fort buried well nigh to the eaves. The herald of change was a wild rush of wind sweeping down the valley from the broken hills which formed its northern limits. And, within half an hour, the silence was torn, and ripped, and tattered, and the world transformed, and given up to complete and utter chaos. A hurricane descended on the post, and its timbers groaned under the added burden. The forest giants laboured and protested at the merciless onslaught, while the crashing of trees boomed out its deep note amidst the shriek of the storm. As the fury of it all rose, so rose up the snowfall of weeks into a blinding fog which shut out every sight of the desolate plateau as though it had never been.

Five weeks saw the extent of winter's first onslaught. And after that for awhile, the battle resolved itself into a test of human endurance, with the temperature hovering somewhere below 60 below zero. For a few short hours the sun would deign to appear above the horizon, prosecute its weary journey across the skyline, and ultimately die its daily death with almost pitiful indifference. Then some twenty hours, when the world was abandoned to the starry magnificence of the Arctic night, supported by the brilliant light of a splendid aurora.

It was during this time that Steve pursued his researches into the lives of these people. He was sitting now in the laboratory, which was a building apart from all the rest. It was the home of the chemist's research. It was equipped with wonderful completeness. Besides the shelves containing all the paraphernalia of a chemist's profession, and the counter which supported a distilling apparatus, and which was clearly intended for other experiment as well, there was a desk, and a small wood stove, which was alight, and radiating a pleasant heat.