The Gaunt Gray Wolf

With November winter fell upon the land in all its sub-Arctic rigour. For a day and a night a blizzard raged, so blinding, so terrific, and with the temperature so low that none dared venture out; and when the weather cleared, the snow, grown so deep that snowshoes were essential in travel, no longer melted under the mid-day sun.

Socks of heavy woollen duffel were now necessary to protect the feet, and buckskin moccasins, with knee-high leggings, took the place of sealskin boots.

In the final distribution of supplies among the tilts, long, narrow Indian toboggans were brought into service, and the loads hauled upon the toboggans.

Martens and foxes were the animals chiefly sought at this season. There were two methods followed in setting the marten traps. Where a tree of sufficient diameter was available, it was cut off as high as the trapper could wield his axe above the snow, and a notch about four inches deep and fourteen inches high cut some distance below the top of the stump and several feet above the snow. The bottom of this notch was given a level surface with the axe, the trap set upon it, and the bait hung in the side of the notch a foot above the trap. At other times an enclosure was made with spruce boughs, and in a narrow opening the trap was set, with the bait within the enclosure.

Fox traps were set upon the marshes, and baited with rabbits which had been hung in the tilt until they began to smell badly, or with other scraps of flesh. The trap securely fastened by its chain to a block of wood or the base of willow brush, was carefully concealed under a thin crust of snow.

The usual routine followed by Ungava Bob, after his trail was once in order and his traps set, was to leave the river tilt on Monday morning, and by a wide circuit around lake shores and marshes, embracing a distance of some fifteen miles, reach his tilt at the far end of the first lake at night. On Tuesday another wide circle of traps around contiguous lakes brought him back again at night to the same tilt. On Wednesday his trail led him to the tilt on the last lake of the old portage trail.

His original intention had been to continue from this tilt to the tilt which the Indians had robbed, and thence to the last tilt on Ed Matheson's trail, some fifteen miles to the northeast. But after the appearance of the Indians it had been deemed unsafe and inadvisable to do this, and the tilt on the river above the portage trail was, therefore, temporarily abandoned.

With this modification, his Thursday circuit of traps was so arranged that it brought him back at night to the tilt on the last lake, and on Friday he proceeded to Ed Matheson's last tilt. This arrangement carried him during the five days over seventy-five miles of trail along which his traps were distributed.

Ed Matheson's trail was so arranged that he also arrived at his last tilt on Friday evening, and he and Bob thus shared the tilt each fortnight from Friday until Monday.

Saturdays were occupied in making repairs and in doing the thousand and one odd jobs always at hand, Sunday in rest, and on Monday the return journey began which brought them to the river tilt on the following Friday, unless by chance they were delayed by storms.

This was the point of fortnightly rendezvous for the four trappers–the junction point of all their trails. Dick Blake's and Bill Campbell's trails took them in opposite directions, and during their period of absence from the river tilt neither saw any of his companions.

The fortnightly reunion at the river tilt was naturally an occasion they all looked forward to. It gave an opportunity to compare notes upon their success, to recount experiences, and to satisfy for a time the human craving for companionship.

Shad made the first outward journey with Bob, and returned with Ed Matheson. Then he made a round with Dick Blake, and finally a round with Bill Campbell.

Every feature of the work was new and interesting to Shad Trowbridge, and for a time he enjoyed it hugely. But presently it dropped into a dreary, monotonous routine. The vast, unbroken solitude, the endless tramping over endless snow, day after day, and the lack of adventure to which he had looked forward, served presently to make him moody and irritable.

Shad had hoped for sport with his rifle, but no big game had been seen–not so much as the track of a caribou. Long before this the last goose and duck had passed southward. Not a bird save the ever-present jay had been encountered in upward of three weeks. Even the rabbits, whose tracks had criss-crossed the early snow in every direction and packed it down along the willow brush, had unaccountably disappeared. The stock of fresh meat, save a pair of geese and three pairs of ptarmigans reserved for a Christmas feast, was exhausted.

These were extraordinary conditions. The men declared that never before in their experience had they observed so complete a disappearance of game. Caribou were usually rather numerous in November. In previous years ptarmigans and spruce grouse had been so plentiful that they were easily killed when needed. One year in every nine rabbits were said to vanish, but otherwise the total absence of game was inexplicable.

It was a condition, too, that caused uneasiness. The flour and pork brought into the country by the trappers was far from adequate to supply their needs. Sufficient wild game to at least double their provision supply was an absolute essential if they were to continue on the trails. Thus far the early game had supplied their requirements, but the prospects for the future were disquieting.

At the end of the first week in December, Bill Campbell and Shad returned from their fortnight on the trail to find their friends already at the river tilt and discussing the situation.

"What you havin', this cruise, Bill?" asked Dick, when the greetings were over.

"Th' worst cruise I ever has," Bill replied, as he drew off his adicky. "One white fox–nothin' else, an' no footin' now t' speak of. Shad an' me never see a hair or feather barrin' th' fox I catches, an' he were a poor un."

"I gets one marten an' a red, up an' back," said Dick. "Ed gets nothin', an' Bob gets one marten. 'Tis a wonderful bad showin'."

"Aye, a wonderful bad showin', gettin' never a hair, an' that's what I gets," declared Ed, in disgust. "If th' next cruise don't show a wonderful lot better, I starts for th' Bay th' mornin' after Christmas, an' I'll not be comin' back till th' middle o' February, whatever."

The dough bread, fried pork, and tea, which Ed and Bob had been preparing, were ready, and, the meal disposed of, pipes were lighted and the discussion of the all-important question was resumed.

"'Tisn't th' havin' a poor cruise now an' again's what's botherin' me," began Ed, "but they ain't no footin'; and where they ain't no footin', they ain't nothin'; an' where they ain't nothin', they ain't no use huntin' it."

"They ain't even a pa'tridge t' be killed for th' pot," complained Bill.

"No, an' we'll be seein' th' end of our grub, with nothin' t' help out, by th' end o' February, whatever," Ed dolefully prophesied.

"Isn't there danger of scurvy if we have nothing but salt pork to eat?" asked Shad.

"That they is, sure as shootin'," agreed Ed.

"If you'd like to go along with me, Shad," suggested Bob, who up to this time had said little, "we'll take a flat-sled with your tent an' a tent stove, an' a couple weeks' grub, an' go down t' th' nu'th'ard an' see if we can't run onto some deer. Th' deer's somewheres, an' if they ain't here they must be t' th' nu'th'ard."

"Of course I'll go with you, Bob," said Shad, delighted with the prospect of individual action and new experiences.

"An' you may be runnin' into some o' th' Mountaineers an' Nascaupees down north, an' let un know about th' tradin' next year," suggested Dick. "If you tells one Injun, th' hull passel o' both tribes'll know about un. Things travels wonderful fast among th' Injuns."

The following day two toboggans were packed with the provisions and equipment sufficient for a two weeks' absence, together with a considerable quantity of tea in addition to their probable requirements, and some plug tobacco, designed as gifts for the Indians.

Long before daylight on Monday morning adieus were said and the two young adventurers turned into the frozen, silent wastes to the northward, Bob in the lead making a rapid pace, Shad following, and each hauling his toboggan.

XVI

ALONE WITH THE INDIANS

At the edge of every frozen marsh and lake Ungava Bob paused to reconnoitre for caribou, but always to be disappointed, and when he and Shad halted at sundown to pitch their night camp, no living thing had they seen.

Shad's small wedge tent was stretched between two trees, snow was banked around it on the outside, and a thick bed of boughs spread upon the snow within. Two short butts of logs were placed at proper distance apart near the entrance and inside the tent, the tent stove set upon them, and with an ample supply of wood cut and split, their night shelter, with a roaring fire in the stove, was warm and cosy.

The days that followed were equally as disappointing. The smooth white surface of the snow was unmarred by track of beast or bird. No living creature stirred. No sound broke the silence. The frozen world was dead, and the silence was the silence of the sepulchre.

"It's so quiet you can hear it," Shad remarked once when they halted to make tea.

"Aye," said Bob, "'tis that, and they's no footin' of even rabbits. I can't make un out."

On the afternoon of the third day after leaving the river tilt, they came upon the southern shore of the Great Lake of the Indians, and turning westward presently discovered Sishetakushin's wigwam.

The travellers received a warm welcome from the Indians. Sishetakushin and Mookoomahn were indeed noisy and effusive in their greeting. Manikawan radiated pleasure, but she and her mother, a large, fat woman, as became their status as women, remained in the background.

The Indians had killed some caribou early in the season, and jerked the meat. They had just killed a bear whose winter den they had discovered, and over the fire was a kettle of stewing beaver meat, upon which they feasted their visitors.

At the proper time Bob presented them with tea, Shad gave them each some tobacco, and then Bob told them of his proposed trading project.

"My people will be glad," said Sishetakushin, "and you will have much trade."

It developed in the course of conversation that the Indians were preparing to move at once to the Lake of Willows (Petitsikapau), to the northwest, in the hope of meeting caribou, for none had been seen by them since those they had killed in early fall.

They were to cache some of their provisions near the Great Lake; and when they had made a sufficient kill in the North to supply them with food, were to return to their cache near the Great Lake to trap martens, for in the more northerly country, where wide barrens take the place of forests, martens are rarely to be found.

"Bob, here's a chance I've been hoping for," said Shad, when Bob interpreted to him the Indians' plan. "Do you think they would be willing to let me go with them until their return here, if I gave them some tobacco?"

"They's no tellin', Shad, how long they'll be away," suggested Bob.

"But I want to go if they'll let me go. Please ask them," insisted Shad.