The Silent Places Part 13

"Thus it is," said she rapidly. "These be the leg bones and this the bone of the ankle. This bone is broken, so. Thus it is held in place by the skill of the Little Father. Thus it is healing, with stiffness of the muscles and the gristle, so that always Eagle eye will walk like wood, and never will he run. The Little Father has told May-may-gwan what there is to do. It is now the time. Fifteen suns have gone since the hurt."

She spoke simply. d.i.c.k, interested in spite of himself, stared at the switches and the hasty charcoal sketch. The dead silence hung for a full minute. Then the young man fell back from his elbow with an enigmatical snort. May-may-gwan a.s.sumed consent and set to work on the simple yet delicate manipulations, ma.s.sages, and flexings, which, persisted in with due care lest the fracture slip, would ultimately restore the limb to its full usefulness.

Once a day she did this, thrice a day she brought food. The rest of the time she was busy about her own affairs; but never too occupied to loop up a section of the tepee covering for the purpose of admitting fresh air, to bring a cup of cold water, to readjust the sling which suspended the injured leg, or to perform an hundred other little services. She did these things with inscrutable demeanour. As d.i.c.k always accepted them in silence, she offered them equally in silence. No one could have guessed the thoughts that pa.s.sed in her heart.

At the end of a week d.i.c.k raised himself suddenly on his elbow.

"Some one is coming!" he exclaimed, in English.

At the sound of his voice the girl started forward. Her mouth parted, her eyes sparkled, her nostrils quivered. Nothing could have been more pathetic than this sudden ecstatic delight, as suddenly extinguished when she perceived that the exclamation was involuntary and not addressed to her. In a moment Sam Bolton appeared, striding out of the forest.

He unslung his little pack, leaned his rifle against a tree, consigned to May-may-gwan a dog he was leading, and approached the wigwam. He seemed in high good humour.

"Well, how goes it?" he greeted.

But at the sight of the man striding in his strength d.i.c.k's dull anger had fallen on him again like a blanket. Unreasonably, as he himself well knew, he was irritated. Something held him back from the utterance of the hearty words of greeting that had been on his tongue. A dull, apathetic indifference to everything except the chains of his imprisonment enveloped his spirit.

"All right," he answered, grudgingly.

Sam deftly unwound the bandages, examining closely the condition of the foot.

"Bone's in place all right," he commented. "Has the girl rubbed it and moved it every day?"

"Yes."

"Any pain to amount to anything now?"

"Pretty dull work lying on your back all day with nothing to do."

"Yes."

"Took in the country to southeast. Didn't find anything. Picked up a pretty good dog. Part 'husky.'"

d.i.c.k had no comment to make on this. Sam found May-may-gwan making friends with the dog, feeding him little sc.r.a.ps, patting his head, above all wrinkling the end of his pointed nose in one hand and batting it softly with the palm of the other. This caused the dog to sneeze violently, but he exhibited every symptom of enjoyment. The animal had long, coa.r.s.e hair, sharp ears set alertly forward, a bushy tail, and an expression of great but fierce intelligence.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Listen, Little Sister," said he. "Now I go on a long journey"]

"Eagle-eye does well," said the woodsman.

"I have done as the Little Father commanded," she replied, and arose to cook the meal.

The next day Sam constructed a pair of crutches well padded with moss.

"Listen, Little Sister," said he. "Now I go on a long journey, perhaps fifteen suns, perhaps one moon. At the end of six suns more Jibibanisi may rise. His leg must be slung, thus. Never must he touch the foot to the ground, even for an instant. You must see to it. I will tell him, also. Each day he must sit in the sun. He must do something. When snow falls we will again take the long trail. Prepare all things for it. Give Eagle-eye materials to work with."

To d.i.c.k he spoke with like directness.

"I'm off again, d.i.c.k," said he. "There's no help for it; you've got to lay up there for a week yet. Then the girl will show you how to tie your leg out of the way, and you can move on crutches. If you rest any weight on that foot before I get back, you'll be stiff for life. I shouldn't advise you to take any chances. Suit yourself; but I should try to do no more than get out in the sun. You won't be good for much before snow.

You can get things organised. She'll bring you the stuff to work on, and will help. So long."

"Good-by," muttered d.i.c.k. He breathed hard, fully occupied with the thought of his helplessness, with blind, unappeasable rage against the chance that had crippled him, with bitter and useless questionings as to why such a moment should have been selected for the one accident of his young life. Outside he could hear the crackle of the little fire, the unusual sound of the Indian girl's voice as she talked low to the dog, the animal's whine of appreciation and content. Suddenly he felt the need of companionship, the weariness of his own unending, revolving thoughts.

"Hi!" he called aloud.

May-may-gwan almost instantly appeared in the entrance, a scarcely concealed hope shining in her eyes. This was the first time she had been summoned.

"Ninny-moosh--the dog," commanded d.i.c.k, coldly.

She turned to whistle the beast. He came at once, already friends with this human being, who understood him.

"Come here, old fellow," coaxed d.i.c.k, holding out his hand.

But the half-wild animal was in doubt. He required a.s.surance of this man's intentions. d.i.c.k gave himself to the task of supplying it. For the first time in a month his face cleared of its discontent. The old, winning boyishness returned. May-may-gwan, standing forgotten, in the entrance, watched in silence. d.i.c.k coaxed knowingly, leading, by the very force of persuasion, until the dog finally permitted a single pat of his sharp nose. The young man smoothly and cautiously persisted, his face alight with interest. Finally he conquered. The animal allowed his ears to be rubbed, his nose to be batted. At length, well content, he lay down by his new master within reach of the hand that rested caressingly on his head. The Indian girl stole softly away. At the fireside she seated herself and gazed in the coals. Presently the marvel of two tears welled in her eyes. She blinked them away and set about supper.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Whether it was that the prospect of getting about, or the diversion of the dog was responsible for the change, d.i.c.k's cheerfulness markedly increased in the next few days. For hours he would fool with the animal, whom he had named Billy, after a hunting companion, teaching him to shake hands, to speak, to wrinkle his nose in a doggy grin, to lie down at command, and all the other tricks useful and ornamental that go to make up the fanciest kind of a dog education. The mistakes and successes of his new friend seemed to amuse him hugely. Often from the tent burst the sounds of inextinguishable mirth. May-may-gwan, peeping, saw the young man as she had first seen him, clear-eyed, laughing, the wrinkles of humour deepening about his eyes, his white teeth flashing, his brow untroubled. Three days she hovered thus on the outer edge of the renewed good feeling, then timidly essayed an advance.

Un.o.btrusive, she slipped inside the teepee's flap. The dog sat on his haunches, his head to one side in expectation.

"The dog is a good dog," she said, her breath choking her.

Apparently the young man had not heard.

"It will be well to name the dog that he may answer to his name," she ventured again.

d.i.c.k, abruptly gripped by the incomprehensible obsession, uneasy as at something of which he only waited the pa.s.sing, resentful because of the discomfort this caused him, unable to break through the artificial restraint that enveloped his spirit, lifted his eyes suddenly, dead and lifeless, to hers.

"It is time to lift the net," he said.

The girl made no more advances. She moved almost automatically about her accustomed tasks, preparing the materials for what remained to be done.

Promptly on the seventh day, with much preparation and precaution, d.i.c.k moved. He had now to suffer the girl's a.s.sistance. When he first stood upright, he was at once attacked by a severe dizziness, which would have caused a fall had not May-may-gwan steadied him. With difficulty he hobbled to a seat outside. Even his arms seemed to him pithless. He sank to his place hard-breathed, exhausted. It was some minutes before he could look about him calmly.

The first object to catch his eye was the cardinal red of a moose-maple, like a spot of blood on velvet-green. And thus he knew that September, or the Many-caribou-in-the-woods Moon, was close at hand.

"Hi!" he called.

May-may-gwan came as before, but without the look of expectation in her eyes.

"Bring me wood of mashkigiwateg, wood of tamarack," he commanded; "bring me mokamon, the knife, and tsch-mokamon, the large knife; bring the hide of ah-tek, the caribou."

"These things are ready, at hand," she replied.

With the _couteau croche_, the crooked knife of the North, d.i.c.k laboured slowly, fashioning with care the long tamarack strips. He was exceedingly particular as to the selection of the wood, as to the taper of the pieces. At last one was finished to his satisfaction. Slowly then he fashioned it, moulding the green wood, steaming it to make it more plastic, until at last the ends lay side by side, and the loop of wood bowed above in the shape of a snow-shoe raquette. The exact shape d.i.c.k still further a.s.sured by means of two cross-pieces. These were bound in place by the strips of the caribou-skin rawhide wet in warm water, which was also used to bind together the two ends. The whole was then laid aside to dry.