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was long after supper, but the fire that warmed the
long shelter was in the cooking stove. Dampered to its
utmost, its lids were red hot, and the draught roared,
throbbed or sighed in response to the tempest that raged
without. From beyond the door came the sound of a forest
strained to uprooting, shrieking as it clutched the
ground in fear lest it should be swept away utterly
into the waste places of the earth. Hail was drumming
on the little window, and every moment from the roof
came the swift rending sound of a branch that hurtled
across it into space.
The interior was lit by a single
lamp backed by a tin reflector. A newspaper pinned to
the wall by a hunting knife kept the glare from a row
of bunks that filled one side of the room. Isaac Saracin,
the mighty moose hunter, laid down the half-consumed
Havana that Franklin Madison had given him, with the
air of a man who had done his duty, and began to fill
his pipe.
“Hear her now,”
said Dugald Maclaren, the fire-ranger, as the sound
of the storm rose up with whelming fury; “we got
here in very good time, as I wass saying to you, Mr.
Madison.”
“He’s asleep,”
Madison remarked, with a glance and a nod toward the
bunk, which showed that he was not thinking of the storm.
In the lull they could hear the sound of breathing,
weary and regular.
“Too much rough country
for such a gentleman,” said Isaac, with sympathy
in his big voice.
“You will be glad for
Toronto again; it is a wild welcome we have given you,
whatever,” said Dugald.
“I’m all right,”
said Madison, who was as big as Dugald, and as good
a hunter, “but the little doctor was not built
for such hardships.”
“Down in the runway he
say to me, ‘De second time I have been this country,
Isaac, and I have no luck here.’ ‘Wait jes
one minute,’ says I, ‘and we get vary big
moose.’”
“The second time!”
interrupted Madison, in a doubtful tone. “I never
knew he had been in this country before.” [Page
131]
“And by-em-by come de
big storm. ‘Is this your vary big moose?’
he say to me. ‘Isaac Saracin, is this the vary
big moose you promise me?’ He laugh, and den I
carry him in for one mile on my back.”
“He was a very good piece
of stuff, whatever, leave alone his doubled back.”
Dugald’s remark ended in a whisper as he heard
the stir of the sleeper and saw a hand come into the
light.
“He talk to me,”
Isaac resumed, enamored of his own words, now that his
pipe was drawing on its store of “Myrtle Navy.”
“He say: ‘I like this big quiet, you and
the pines and the birches all well, no aches and pains.
Nothin’ come to me wid scare face and say: “Doctor,
what mus’ I do to be well?” I see nobody
who is all wrong, nerve all gone to the dev’!
No one say to me here, “Ees there no hope, doctor?”
I vill say now, after this, there is always hope!”
“Dr. Freer is the greatest
nerve and brain specialist in Toronto,” remarked
Madison, and his words sounded strange to the woodsmen,
strange with the hint of a life unknown, turbulent,
weary, out there beyond the storm.
“Very odd to think upon,
and him not a man’s height, and the poor weak
back of him,” said Dugald.
“It not the back that
make the brains; if dat was fac’ you would be
great, magnifique brain man, Dugald,” Isaac rallied
the Highlandman, who had worsted him in many crafts,
and who now cracked his finger joints and gazed at the
fire with contempt. For a little while there was quiet
in the rude room.
“That minds me,”
said Dugald, with a gesture toward the world of anger
beyond the sheltering wall, “of the night back
beyond; it was ten miles from here, just such a perfect
tevil of a night, when Gabriel Rosseau, him they call
the wild man of Kazubazua, came in upon us; four we
were in a little shed at a rollway, and he stood before
us.”
Isaac looked quickly at the
door as the storm shook it.
“Batame!” he said,
loath to turn over the monologue to Dugald, “mon
frère Narcisse was dere.”
“It’s lying ye are,
Mr. Saracin,” remarked Dugald. “No brother
of yours was there; better company was I in that night.”
“I mean when it happened.”
“I have the advantage
of you, Mr. Saracin; I have the story at first hand;
I was there myself when it happened, I would have the
gentlemen understand.” [Page 132]
“By gare!” said
Isaac, showing his teeth, “I have seen as good
as you, once when I was back at the Achigan, and I saw
him—me—just the same as you.”
“As I was remarking when
you had the good manners to interrupt me,” resumed
Dugald, “he came and stood before us. There was
no human speech in him, and there was upon him not so
much as a piece of clothing that was not made of the
skin of beasts, and his eyes were that wild that I felt
the hair of my flesh bristle with the fear of them,
and so put out of ourselves we were that we could but
offer him a bit of meat and a bannock upon the blade
of a shovel, and he was away with it as quick as a wildcat.”
“If you had been braver
you might have got the reward!” Isaac was mighty
in scorn.
“We do be leaving money
rewards to the Frenchmen,” retorted Dugald, “rewards
for falling upon weak bodies, the weak-witted, and taking
that from them which they desired to keep.”
“She would have broken
your bones and your backs for you,” said Isaac,
in his wrath careless of the gender of his pronouns,
“for she was strong, by gare!”
“As I was going to say
to my friend here from below,” said Dugald, ignoring
the interruption, “it was a very odd case, that
of Gabriel Rosseau, and, as I before said, this tevil
of a storm minded me of that now. When it happened was
just twelve years ago; it was at the stopping place
called Heron’s, down at the Pickanock. You must
know, Mr. Madison, that when we used to come for the
lumber, we that worked for the big concerns, we used
to come in gangs from below; and there would be so many
as fifty or more; and we was driven up in loads of ten.
It was when you and the doctor, Clifton Freer, were
little, young boys; that is all gone by now.[”]
“It would be the fall
of the year that we was always coming up the river,
and as we was coming up the boys was very wild and made
a great noise, for they knew what was before them, to
be shut up for so many months in the forest with the
employment of cutting trees alone, with very plain food
and no drop of anything fit to drink, moreover; so upon
the way we used to be free with the good whiskey.”
“It was the good whiskey
in those days, and done you forget it,” interrupted
Isaac.
Dugald went on scornfully:—
“It was the good and the
bad, just as it is to-day, but to some people there
is no difference whatever. Well, as I was saying, this
time when it happened we was a gang of fifty, and very
wild we was, and some of those dead and gone was the
best men on the river.” [Page 133]
“Mon frère Narcisse,
ba cripe!” ejaculated Isaac, with a slap of his
palm on his knee to indicate the limit of a dare-devil.
“Sorry I am to say it,
Mr. Saracin, he was a better man than you. Well, as
I was saying, there would have been no difference between
this and any other time, but there was a couple with
us that made the difference. There was a little lad,
a weak, small wisp of a fellow, with a man who looked
after his book studies, a tudor they were calling him.”
“A little softer!”
said Madison below his breath, with a nod toward the
bunk. The hand had been withdrawn into shadow.
“They were riding in the
foreman’s rig and I was not there, but I mind
seeing the little white-faced chap. He was much taken
with Gabriel Rosseau, one of the biggest men on the
river, a big tender-hearted fellow, that loved small,
weak-bodied things, and had God’s pity for them.
Well, Gabriel used to jump the laddie out of the rig
and carry him to and fro, as if he was a feather, and
his weight was just that to Gabriel. None of us looked
much upon him, but we heard that he was going up to
meet his father who had been hunting after the moose,
just as you gentlemans are doing; and maybe it was thought
that a whiff or two of this north air would do the little
feller good. Anyhow, there was he, and we was there
also. When we got to Heron’s, that is the last
big stopping-place, there was a very good time, and
by the morning there was not one of the boys that was
able at all to walk. Never mind, they was bundled into
the rigs, come grey dawn, and away with them; singing,
them as could, and sleeping, them as couldn’t
sing. Come noon, there was only one in our rig that
was not rightly himself— and that was Gabriel
Rosseau.
“There was I by him, having
got myself bundled into the foreman’s rig in the
scuffle. The foreman would keep saying to the boys ‘Wait
now till he clears up, and I will have my joke with
him.’ I mind well how his head would go from this
side to the other side, with the rolling of the rig.
It was, maybe, one o’clock when he began to straighten
up, and then he looked around and says he, ‘Where
is the little feller?’
“Not having been in with
the foreman, not till then did I notice that the lad
was gone. The foreman gave us a wink; says he: ‘You’ll
know soon enough, Rosseau.’ Then we observed that
it was his joke, and we bided our time. Every little
while, when Rosseau would cry out, getting wilder and
wilder, ‘Say, Boss, tell me where is the little
feller?’ the foreman would answer, ‘I’m
sorry for you, Rosseau,’ or, ‘A lesson it
will be to you, Rosseau.’ Some of the boys were
enjoying the joke better than me, because they knew
the lad was safe with his father, who had come into
Heron’s just as we were starting in the morning.
At last says Rosseau, with a big sigh, [Page
134] ‘Tell me, Boss, where is the little
feller?’ Then says the boss, ‘Well, I’m
sorry for you, Rosseau, but you have killed that little
feller yourself when you were drunk, and may it be a
lesson to you.’ Then all the boys see just what
a joke it was, and they torment Gabriel with it. They
would be saying, ‘Here comes the sheriff for you,
Gabriel,’ or ‘O! they will be hanging you,
Gabriel.’
“Now, for the truth, I
didn’t care for the joke, or the way Gabriel was
taking it, moreover. He said never one word, and every
little while he gave a great shiver, like a man fighting
cold. The night was just coming on when we heard a shout
behind us, and then, looking back from the top of a
hill where the horses were having a rest, we could see
a fellow riding as hard as he could. And the boss thinks,
‘Everything is coming out well for my little joke
with Gabriel,’ so he says, ‘I’m sorry
for you, Rosseau, but here is the officer after you.’
“And with that Gabriel
jumped out of the rig with a yell and went into the
bush as if the tevil himself was come for him. Then
all the boys set up a laugh at the good joke the foreman
had upon Gabriel. But I listened to Gabriel and I did
not laugh; I did not care for the way he was crying
out going through the bush. For I said to myself, ‘That
man cries out like one that is gone crazy, and it will
not be a very good joke for a man to be crazy in the
bush.’
“Well, it all came out
when the man won to us; he was the tudor chap. The little
feller had given Gabriel a parcel to keep for him—what
with jumping in and out of the rig, he was afraid to
lose it. There was in the parcel a picture-painting
of his mother that she was sending to her good man as
a surprise, in the way of the married. He had given
it to Gabriel to safe-keep it for him—and there
was Gabriel in the bush. So we all got out and went
after him, but that was no use; for so far as we would
go into the bush Gabriel would go further into the bush.
Then it came night.” Dugald paused. Was that the
storm shouldering the door? With so many trees to harry,
was it stooping to shake their slender defence?
“We all came back, and
there was nothing to do but go on, and the man to go
back and say that the parcel was safe with Gabriel,
and he knew that Gabriel had gone into the bush. Well,
two years after that, they say, there is a reward of
two hundred dollars for anybody who would take that
parcel from Gabriel, for the poor lady was dead that
sent it, and they that was left must have it, it was
that precious to them.” Dugald paused. Was that
sound upon the door the swift fingering of a branch
borne across it by the wind? Again it came, rapid and
sweeping. [Page 135]
“But no one ever got that
from Gabriel,” said Dugald slowly. “He was
wild; and only once in a year or so would he come into
the fire; then he would be asking for something, and
was anybody mean enough to be taking it from a poor
body that was asking something? No. He had it safe,
and there he was in the bush.” Dugald’s
voice hovered; it was just settling again upon the words
when the door opened.
It seemed hours before anyone
moved. Back of this form stood darkness. It was a man
assuredly, but so covered with shag as to appear a thing
of the wild forest. He seemed to tread on the verge
of the storm and to be a body of wrack torn from its
edge. Before him was peace.
Suddenly he swayed. Madison sprang and caught him and
had his length upon the floor. The storm, when it had
delivered him into their hands, roared vainly to have
him again, and Isaac crushed the door against its face.
He lay there still, and they gazed upon him. Dugald
broke the silence, “Indeed it was a very bad joke,
whatever.” Then Madison raised his head while
Isaac thrust a dunnage bag under it. Dugald dipped a
pannikin in the hot-water kettle and poured into it
some rum from the demijohn. The noise disturbed the
sleeper.
“What was that?”
he asked.
“Nothing,” said
Madison. “Don’t be disturbed.” They
poured the hot rum upon his lips, then followed, after
an interval, a long, gurgling sigh.
“What was that?”
The voice was alert, clear, insistent. The doctor sprang
from the bunk and came forward. Isaac, who always wore
his cap before everyone, now doffed it to this dwarfed,
misshapen man. He looked upon the long form stretched
before him, and then he knelt at its side.
“Frank, hand me the case,
above there, in the upper bunk. Now, Dugald, will you
cut this sleeve?” Dugald snatched the hunting
knife that had held the paper to shade the lamp. It
fell down, and the light came full upon the doctor’s
face.
Soon the magical little instrument
was pouring life into the veins. Expectant, they watched
the eyelids, which seemed the sole vestiges of humanity.
Then they were raised, and the eyes fell upon the doctor.
They pored upon him, they searched his face. The lids
closed and his image went sinking into the choked halls
of consciousness and memory. They opened again and he
stared as if he could never glean enough of recollection.
What was it? Something in the past—the past that
was naught save persecution and flight. But this was
different; this was warmth, light, peace. The doctor
had his fingers close down over the pulse that was beating
up like the wing stroke of a weary bird before the wind.
[Page 136]
Suddenly the doctor’s
light grasp was shaken off. With an effort that wandered,
but was bent with terrible energy toward one end, with
trembling hands Gabriel Rosseau groped in the vacancies
under the great shaggy garment that served him for a
coat. After years of craze and fear he had recognized
in the face that bent over him the little puny lad who
had given the parcel with a caution never to give it
to anyone except himself. He had comprehended. With
some attempt at human speech, he thrust a small, dark
bundle into the doctor’s hands, and sank back
exhausted.
Taking the hunting-knife, Clifton
Freer ripped away, one by one, the layers of rabbit-skin
and birch bark that had so long and faithfully protected
the contents. There was hardly a breath as he disclosed
the inner case, and next it a letter. That for a moment
he disregarded, but he looked upon the miniature, and
the face that gazed at him brought up the past in a
great cloud. There it was, the picture of his mother,
in its gold frame, studded with stones, just as she
had sent it to his father as a surprise (in the way
of the married, as Dugald had said) those many years
ago.
His grasp fell again upon the
wrist. In a little while a smile seemed to mount upon
his grave face, hardly a smile, a look of contented
power. Through his finger tips he was feeling and registering
every weakness in the ruin prone before him, and at
the same time he was reconstructing it.
“We can take him down
to-morrow?” he said inquiringly.
“I am going for the horses.
By the time I am here in the morning you will be ready,”
said Dugald, taking the doctor’s question as a
command.
“Is there any hope, Clifton?”
asked Madison, bending over him.
“There is always hope,”
he answered, glancing at Isaac. Dugald closed the door,
and they remained there in silence.
Ere long they were aware of
it. The storm had drawn away and left that leafless
valley in the northland at rest. As a grace after turmoil
the cloud had scattered snow, near and far, upon hill
and hollow. It was a mask of peace drawn lightly over
the austere features of the wilderness. And there it
lay in the silence, glimmering with millions of tiny
rays under the night sky. [Page 137]
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