The Gaunt Gray Wolf

In any case their lives must hang in the balance until the cache was reached, unless game were encountered in the meantime, which seemed highly improbable.

A meagre meal was served at an early hour the following morning. As usual, camp was broken long before day, and then came the farewells.

The parting between Sishetakushin and Mookoomahn was affecting, that between the women more stoical. Shad regretfully shook the hands of the old Indian and his wife. They had been friends to him, and he had no expectation that he should ever see them again.

Then Shad and his companions turned southward into the wide wastes of frozen desolation that lay between him and his friends. It was to be a journey of tragic experiences–a journey that was to try his metal as it had never yet been tried.

XX

THE FOLK AT WOLF BIGHT

The Grays were very lonely and the little cabin at Wolf Bight seemed desolate and deserted indeed during the first days following the departure of the trappers for the interior. Mrs. Gray and Emily cried a little, and often Emily would say:

"I wonders where Bob is now, Mother, an' what he's doin'?"

"He's workin' up th' river, lass, an' th' dirty weather's makin' th' trackin' an' portagin' wonderful hard for un," she would answer, when it stormed; or, when the sun shone, "They's havin' a fine day for travellin' now."

But presently the preparations for Emily's departure for school occupied their attention to the exclusion of all else, and they forgot for a time their loneliness.

Her going was to be an event of vast importance. It was an innovation, not only in their household but in the community, for never before had any of the young people of the Bay attended school; and never before, save on the occasion when Emily had been taken to the St. Johns hospital the previous year, to undergo an operation, had any of the girls–or women, either, for that matter–been farther from home than Fort Pelican.

When Bob came into his little fortune through the salvage of the trading schooner, "Maid of the North," Mrs. Gray had urged that Richard rest from the trail for one season, and at the same time give the animals an opportunity to increase. This he had done, and during the previous winter, when Bob also was at home, he and Bob had occupied their time in the woods with the axe and pit saw, cutting a quantity of timber and planking.

There was no immediate need of this timber, and when Bob was gone Richard determined to utilise it in the construction of a small schooner, in anticipation of the trading operations to begin the following year. Such a vessel would be a necessity in transporting supplies from Fort Pelican to the store at Wolf Bight.

Therefore, he began at once the work of laying the keel. There were nearly three months at his disposal before he would go out upon his trapping trail, and in this time, hoping to accomplish much, he remained at his task from early morning until dusk drove him from it. Thus occupied, Mrs. Gray and Emily seldom saw him, save at meal hours and after candle-light in the evening, and this made them doubly lonesome.

One day late in August, Douglas Campbell sailed his boat over to Wolf Bight to spend the day with his friends and to announce that a week later he would come for Emily to take her to Fort Pelican, where they were to connect with the mail boat for St. Johns.

This recalled the near approach of Emily's departure, and the days that followed passed with amazing rapidity. Emily's new woollen frock–the first woollen frock she had ever possessed–needed still some finishing touches. It was to be her Sunday dress–to be worn at church, where there would be many fine people to see her–and as pretty as the mother's skill and care could make it.

Then there were the print frocks for everyday wear, to be freshly laundered and packed with other clothing into a new wooden chest which her father had made for her; and the innumerable last things to be done, which kept Emily and her mother in a continuous state of flurry and excitement.

Quite too soon Emily's last day at home dawned, and, true to his appointment, Douglas Campbell arrived during the afternoon. He looked very grand and dignified and altogether unlike himself in his suit of grey tweed. He wore this suit only on those rare occasions–usually at intervals of three or four years–when business called him to St. Johns, and Emily had but once before seen him so strangely attired.

He looked so strange and unnatural–so unlike the good old Douglas that she loved, in moleskin trousers and pea-jacket or adicky–that she felt he was somehow different, and that the world was going all topsy-turvy.

And then for the first time there came to her a full realisation of the great change that was to take place in her life–that she was going far from home and into a strange land–that for many, many months she was to see neither her father nor her mother–that she was to live among strangers who cared nothing for her–that she would be separated from those who loved her and all that she held dear in the world. A great ache came into her heart–the first heart-hunger of the homesick–and she slipped away behind the curtain to throw herself upon her little white bed and seek relief in stifled sobs.

Presently as she lay there, weeping quietly to herself, loud exclamations of hearty welcome from her father and mother as some one entered the door caused her to sit up and listen. Then she recognised Tom Black's voice, and heard Bessie asking:

"Where's Emily?"

This was splendid! Bessie had come to spend the night! And, quickly drying her tears and forgetting her heartache, Emily rushed out to greet her friend and to find that the whole Black family were there–Tom, the motherly Mrs. Black, and Bessie.

"Oh, Emily, I just had t' come t' see you off!" exclaimed Bessie, as the two girls rushed together and hugged each other in delight. "I coaxes, an' coaxes, an' coaxes Father t' bring me over, an' he just teases me an' says he's busy, an' Mr. McDonald can't spare he, till this mornin' he says we're comin'. An' all th' time he an' Mother's plannin' t' come!"

"'Twon't do t' tell a maid everything you plans t' do," Tom chuckled.

Bessie pursed up her red lips, and tossing her head at him laughed gaily, showing her dimples.

"Oh, but you just had t' come anyway, for I'd never give you a bit o' peace if you hadn't."

Her cheeks flushed with excitement and her eyes sparkling with pleasure, Tom looked at her proudly, and could not refrain from the remark:

"She ain't a very humbly lass, now be she, Richard?"

"Now, Father, stop teasin' Bessie," cautioned Mrs. Black. "He's always teasin' th' lass."

"I'm just dyin' t' see your things, Emily!" exclaimed Bessie, as Emily took her friend's bonnet and wraps. "An, I couldn't let you go without seein' you. An' I'm goin' t' stay awhile, too, with your mother. She'll be so lonesome without somebody t' talk to when you goes."

"Oh, Bessie! How wonderful glad I am o' that! I were just thinkin' how lonesome Mother were goin' t' be with me an' Bob both gone–an'–an' 'twere makin' me feel bad;" and Emily brushed away a tear.

"We'll not be lettin' your mother, nor father, either, get lonesome," said Douglas, patting her shoulder gently and looking down in his kindly way into her face. "Bessie'll be 'bidin' here till I comes back in October, an' then she'll be comin' again after th' New Year for a long stop. An' I'll be comin' once every week, whatever."

"Oh, I'm hopin' so!" Mrs. Gray exclaimed. "I'm not darin' t' think about how 'twill be when Emily's gone."

"Now I knows, an' Tom knows; an' we was talkin' t' Douglas about un when he were over t' th' post, an' we were sayin', 'Now Bessie'll have t' go over an' 'bide awhile with Mary when Emily's gone,'" said Mrs. Black.

"An' you never tells me, an' just lets me tease t' come!" pouted Bessie.

"We were wantin' t' surprise you, lass. An'," Mrs. Black continued, addressing Mrs. Gray, "I knows what 'tis t' be alone, now, an' th' men folks is all in th' bush. I used t' be alone before Tom takes th' place t' th' post; but now we has plenty o' company."

"'Tis wonderful good an' thoughtful of you!" Mrs. Gray exclaimed heartily. "Now set in an' have a cup o' tea an' a bite. You must need un after th' cruise over."

The evening was spent in chatting and visiting and looking over Emily's new clothes. Neither Emily nor Bessie–both overcome with excitement–slept much, however, that night, for they had a world to talk about as they lay in bed–but most of all the great and wonderful experiences Emily was to have.

Emily and her mother clung to each other, and Bessie to both of them, and cried and cried, when the time for parting came the following morning, until finally Douglas and Richard were compelled to draw Emily gently into the boat. Then motherly Mrs. Black, surreptitiously brushing tears from her own eyes, put her arm around Mrs. Gray and soothingly urged:

"Don't be cryin', Mary. Th' maid's goin' t' be all right, an' they's nothin' to cry for. 'Twon't be so long till you has she back."

Richard had the hull of the little schooner well under way when the mid-October cold forced him to abandon the work until the following summer, and he was preparing to set out upon his trail when Douglas appeared one evening, fresh from St. Johns, to report Emily comfortably settled in the home of a hospitable family near the school she was attending, and that she was immensely interested in her studies and fairly well contented, though a little lonesome at times for home.

Douglas evidently had something on his mind that troubled him. Once Mrs. Gray asked if he were ailing, but he denied anything but the best of health. Finally, however, as a disagreeable duty that he must perform, the kind-hearted old trapper said:

"I'm not knowin' just how t' tell you–'twill be a wonderful hard blow t' th' lad–th' bank where Bob were puttin' his money has broke, an' I'm fearin' th' money's all lost."

"Lost! Lost!" exclaimed Richard and Mrs. Gray together.

"Aye," said Douglas, "lost."

Then he explained fully the failure of the bank, in which he also had a small amount on deposit, and the improbability of any of the depositors recovering more than a nominal percentage of their deposits, and even that doubtful.

"Well," said Mrs. Gray, "'twill be wonderful hard on th' lad, an' he countin' so on th' tradin' business."

"Aye," repeated Richard, "wonderful hard on he. Wonderful hard an' disappointin', After all his plannin' an' hopin' an' thinkin' about un."

"An' Emily's schoolin' charge! How now be we goin' t' pay un?" asked Mrs. Gray.