Two on the Trail: A Story of Canada Snows Read online

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  Motionless before her stood a figure wrapped in the usualIndian blanket. p. 100]

  TWO ON THE TRAIL

  A STORY OF CANADA SNOWS

  BY E. E. COWPER

  AUTHOR or "THE MOONRAKERS," "KITTIWAKE'S CASTLE," "CREW OF THE SILVER FISH," ETC.

  WITH A FRONTISPIECE BY W. PAGET

  LONDON THE SHELDON PRESS NORTHUMBERLAND AVENUE, W.C. 2 New York and Toronto: The Macmillan Company 1922

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER

  I. The Log House II. A Surprise that Brings Suspicion III. Nell Makes up her Mind IV. The Howl Of The Wolf V. "Little Eyes has a Forked Tongue" VI. Green Eyes in the Darkness VII. A Midnight Battle VIII. The Mysterious Camp Fire IX. How the Great Bull Fled for his Life X. The Camp on the Wolf's Tooth Rocks XI. The Hunters XII. The Flight Continues XIII. A Race For Life XIV. Rifle Shots XV. In which the Ice Goes out, and the Trail Leads Home

  TWO ON THE TRAIL

  CHAPTER I

  THE LOG HOUSE

  "Do you suppose anything has happened to him?" asked the boy; "do you,Nell?"

  He had been asking that question a great many times a day for a goodmany days. Every time he asked it his sister said, "Oh no, of coursenot," and set about any sort of work to prove she was not thinkinganxious thoughts. At last, however, her answer was rather slower incoming, and on this particular occasion no answer came till Davidtouched her arm.

  "Do you, Nell?" he urged.

  "I don't know. I shouldn't think so," she said, but instead of gettingbusy she sat still and stared at the red-hot stove, her strong hardhands clasped round her knees, and a frown on her forehead--actuallydoing nothing at all but just think!

  This state of things was surprising enough to make "Da," as she calledher young brother, more persistent than ever. He was a big, strong,square-shouldered boy of twelve, or thereabouts, and his sister was tohim very much what the Captain of the First Eleven might be to a boy inan English school. She was wonderful. She could do anything andeverything that he understood and that came into his life, aswell--better than anyone he knew. Besides the jobs that men leftover--in his experience--and which Nell did as cleverly as the motherwho had died about five years before.

  Da had entire confidence in her, and who shall say he had not a rightto, considering all that he saw and knew about her!

  She was fifteen; a head and shoulders taller than himself, andapparently as strong as their father. Her dark red hair was short as hisown. That is to say, as short as hair can be where people have no shopsand do their own hair-cutting. Her eyes were greenish grey and sharp asthe keen, still eyes of the grey lynx that got trapped once in a way inthe snares set for mink and martens.

  David admired her hair and eyes with all his heart, chiefly because shewas the only member of their small family like that--he and his fatherhaving darkish eyes and hair. Nell was supposed to have taken after aScottish ancestress, with a vigorous character, not after the fairlittle mother with yellow hair and blue eyes; and when people start offlike that in an independent manner they usually take a line of their ownall through.

  In fact, Nell Lindsay was a girl to be trusted; dependable and clever,which was a very good thing, because she needed every bit of it in thepresent crisis.

  She and her young brother were alone in the log house--or shack--morethan a hundred miles from any settlement. The two nearest wereAbbitibbi House on the lake, away to the eastward, and Brunswick House,north on Moose River. Possibly the distance was equal, and Nellcalculated it at a hundred and fifty miles either way.

  That is nothing much in a country of railways, or even of good roads,but it is a long way over trackless waste, pathless forest, andsnow--without guide, without help from human company.

  When Nell did not answer David's persistent questions any longer, it wasbecause she was thinking about the one hundred and fifty miles--andmore--that lay between the shack and friends. It was friends she wanted.There were men nearer than that, but Nell was not sure they werefriends, and therein lay the whole trouble, you see.

  Over all that wilderness of forest and waste, river and lake, therelived trappers who had marked out certain districts as their ownparticular trapping grounds. Some were Indians, some white men who hadtaken up this life for the freedom and profit of making money by sellingpelts--that is skins--to the traders who bought them up for the bigCompanies.

  It was an understood thing that the trappers did not poach on eachother's grounds. If they tried they ran the risk of being shot by therightful owner. They were rough men, and followed rough laws of theirown making.

  The traders came round in early spring and bought up the fur. Orperhaps the trappers took great bundles of pelts away to the tradingposts, got their money and spent it enjoying themselves to make up forthe hardships of winter. But Andrew Lindsay was never one of these. Hebought his flour, tea, bacon, and tobacco from the traders, sold hispelts and kept his money, so that after a bit it came to be common talkthat he had saved a lot and hidden it in, or near, the log house. Hewas not the sort of man to imagine that people might think this. Heloved the wild lands for the beauty and grandeur, and hated the work ofan office and the close life in towns. This feeling had driven himnorth from San Francisco when he was first married. Here he had been inthe Dominion, winter and summer, ever since, but he had not lost sightof the importance of education for his boy, and the money was saving upfor that. David was to be an engineer. The years of work had paid verywell and Nell knew her father's plan. Also she knew about the money, andthat this was perhaps the last winter they would spend in the shackamong the woods on the steep hills that ran for over a thousand milesfrom the northern frontier of Ontario to the Watchish Mountains inNorth-East Territory. The girl was content either way. Whatever herfather decided was right, she thought. The winter was coming to an endvery soon--it was the last week in March--and he had gone on his lastround to look at traps on the more distant runways. The last, becausefur gets thin and poor, and loses its thick beauty when the terriblecold of winter is giving before spring.

  And then, when it was the last thing they would have thought of, thisblow had fallen--Lindsay had not come back. He had gone out into theglittering light of the snowy world, with his gun, his double-lined fursleeping bag, and food enough for four days. _Eight_ days had passed,and he had not returned.

  Now that is how matters stood on a certain afternoon as the grey duskbegan to creep through the trees and close in round the lonely loghouse. It was a difficult position for the girl, but she never for amoment gave way to impatience.

  This house of theirs was as different from an English home as could wellbe--which mattered not at all to the young Lindsay pair, because theyhad no idea what an English house was like.

  This house was built of rough logs--one big room in the middle andeither end partitioned off, thus making two small bedrooms. This wasconsidered luxurious, as most of the trappers had but one room in theshack, for sleeping and eating, and work, too. The walls were justrough logs inside as well as out, the cracks between were stuffed inwith mud and the coarse moss that grows up north. Over this skins werehung, on the floor big skins were laid. From the r
afters bacon hung andonions grown in the summer. In the corners stood sacks of potatoes andflour. The former is very important food in a country that is frozen upabout seven months of the year, because when you cannot get green stuffthere is risk of scurvy, and raw potatoes are the cure for that. Theymust be kept from the least touch of frost, of course, otherwise they gorotten.

  On the floor in one corner was a pile of skins smaller and more valuablethan the grey wolf, the black bear, and the yellow puma of the hills,that hung on the walls.

  As Nell sat by the big stove thinking, her keen eyes wandered from onepossession to another. Finally they rested on the dog and considered himthoughtfully.

  Now this dog was not the kind you would expect to find in a trapper'shut, because he was close-haired, while the dogs used to pull sledges inall parts of the north lands have thick coats and bushy tails. They arecalled "huskies" and have a lot of wolf in their composition. In thevery far north they train in teams of four up to twelve and arewonderfully clever at their work, taking a great pride in it, andrefusing to let other dogs take their place in the line. But if theyare strong and clever they are also exceedingly savage, and if one oftheir number gets badly hurt--so that he cannot defend himself--they setupon him and eat him, just as wolves do when one of the pack isdisabled.

  "Robin Lindsay," as Nell called him, was in no way that kind of dog. Hewas nearly black, with a broad chest and smooth, close coat. He hadears that drooped forward like a hound's, a wrinkled forehead, and wisebrown eyes. Certainly he was all sorts of dog, but it was all of thebest, which mattered a great deal in that terribly lonely place. AndrewLindsay had brought him home one day, four years ago, having bought himfrom a man who was going to make an end of what he thought was a uselesspuppy.

  Now he lay on the thick grey skin of a wolf, his nose between hispaws--watching Nell's face with little twitches of his thoughtfulforehead. He knew there was something the matter, and waited.

  "What shall you do, Nell, if Dad doesn't come back to-night?" askedDavid, stopping in his work of carving a tiny little sled out of wood."You'll have to do something, shan't you?"

  Nell got up from her seat on the bench, walked slowly to the door, slidback the heavy bolt, opened the door and looked out. A raw chillentered and seemed to creep into every corner on the instant. Robinrose to his feet, stalked after his mistress and sniffed the doorstepenquiringly.

  "I thought so," said the girl as she shut out the bitter dusk.

  "Thought what?"

  "I thought it was snowing, and it is."

  "I suppose you mean that will wipe out Dad's trail? Is that it?" askedthe boy.

  "It wouldn't make a scrap of difference to Robin, he'd follow a trailthrough inches of snow. You simply can't bluff him. He always knows.No, I wasn't thinking about the trail exactly--not in that sort of way,anyhow--it's not much good hunting a trail when you pretty well knowwhere it's going to lead you at the start. I mean, Da, that I guesswhere Dad is. When I'm certain I'll tell you most likely. Matter offact I was _hoping_ for snow."

  "You were!"

  "It'll come in useful if I'm not mistaken," said Nell in a conclusivetone.

  David stared at her, puzzled. He believed she was the cleverest girlalive, but he did not even remotely understand what she was talkingabout. On the face of the situation snow was the most tiresomeimpediment to any sort of move. He knew it might be expected now,because when the bitterest, glittering frost began to give way to thecold that comes between winter and spring, the snow was softer underfootand falls might be constantly expected. Slight as the change was, thewind had not the same icy breath. Not that one felt warmer, on thecontrary, the faint tinge of damp made the air cold beyond description,but probably there was not quite the same danger of frost-bite for theface and hands.

  David knew all these things as a matter of course. He had been born andbrought up in the country. But he did not see what the snow could haveto do with the present trouble! However, it was better to go on carvinghis sled than show ignorance, so he waited, glancing up at his sisterevery few seconds, as she paced slowly away from the stove and back toit again, in a kind of thoughtful sentry-go.

  Then Robin growled, deep down in his throat. He had not settled downagain on his bed, but sat up watching Nell's promenade. He had liftedhis muzzle and sniffed the air with a delicate, sensitive movement asthough he were feeling something very gently.

  Then he growled--very low and deep.