In truth, when the soldiers picked me up without ceremony, or gentleness, and bundling me up the stairs of the main hall, flung me into a miserable pen, with windows iron-barred to mid-sash, I was but a sorry hero. My tormentors did not shackle me; I was spared that humiliation.
"There!" exclaimed a Hudson's Bay man, throwing lantern-light across the dismal low roof as I fell sprawling into the room. "That'll cool the young hot-head," and all the French soldiers laughed at my discomfiture.
They chained and locked the door on the outside. I heard the soldiers' steps reverberating through the empty passages, and was alone in a sort of prison-room, used during the régime of the petty tyrant McDonell. It was cold enough to cool any hot-head, and mine was very hot indeed. I knew the apartment well. Nor'-Westers had used it as a fur storeroom. The wind came through the crevices of the board walls and piled miniature drifts on the floor-cracks, all the while rattling loose timbers like a saw-mill. The roof was but a few feet high, and I crept to the window, finding all the small panes coated with two inches of hoar-frost. Whether the iron bars outside ran across, or up and down, I could not remember; but the fact would make a difference to a man trying to escape. Much as I disliked to break the glass letting in more cold, there was only one way of finding out about those bars. I raised my foot for an outward kick, but remembering I wore only the moccasins with which I had been snowshoeing, I struck my fist through instead, and shattered the whole upper half of the window. I broke away cross-pieces that might obstruct outward passage, and leaning down put my hand on the sharp points of upright spikes. So intense was the frost, the skin of my finger tips stuck to the iron, and I drew my hand in, with the sting of a fresh burn.
It was unfortunate about those bars. I could not possibly get past them down to the ground without making a ladder from my great-coat. I groped round the room hoping that some of the canvas in which we tied the peltries, might be lying about. There was nothing of the sort, or I missed it in the dark. Quickly tearing my coat into strips, I knotted triple plies together and fastened the upper end to the crosspiece of the lower window. Feet first, I poked myself out, caught the strands with both hands, and like a flash struck ground below with badly skinned palms. That reminded me I had left my mits in the prison room.
The storm had driven the soldiers inside. I did not encounter a soul in the courtyard, and had no difficulty in letting myself out by the main gate.
I whistled for the dogs. They came huddling from the ladders where I had left them, the sleigh still trailing at their heels. One poor animal was so benumbed I cut him from the traces and left him to die. Gathering up the robes, I shook them free of snow, replaced them in the sleigh and led the string of dogs down to the river. It would be bitterly cold facing that sweep of unbroken wind in mid-river; but the trail over ice would permit greater speed, and with the high banks on each side the dogs could not go astray.
To an overruling Providence, and to the instincts of the dogs, I owe my life. The creatures had not gone ten sleigh-lengths when I felt the loss of my coat, and giving one final shout to them, I lay back on the sleigh and covered myself, head and all, under the robes, trusting the huskies to find their way home.
I do not like to recall that return to the Sutherlands. The man, who is frozen to death, knows nothing of the cruelties of northern cold. The icy hand, that takes his life, does not torture, but deadens the victim into an everlasting, easy, painless sleep. This I know, for I felt the deadly frost-slumber, and fought against it. Aching hands and feet stopped paining and became utterly feelingless; and the deadening thing began creeping inch by inch up the stiffening limbs the life centres, till a great drowsiness began to overpower body and mind. Realizing what this meant, I sprang from the sleigh and stopped the dogs. I tried to grip the empty traces of the dead one, but my hands were too feeble; so I twisted the rope round my arm, gave the word, and raced off abreast the dog train. The creatures went faster with lightened sleigh, but every step I took was a knife-thrust through half-frozen awakening limbs. Not the man who is frozen to death, but the man who is half-frozen and thawed back to life, knows the cruelties of northern cold.
In a stupefied way, I was aware the dogs had taken a sudden turn to the left and were scrambling up the bank. Here my strength failed or I tripped; for I only remember being dragged through the snow, rolling over and over, to a doorway, where the huskies stopped and set up a great whining. Somehow, I floundered to my feet. With a blaze of light that blinded me, the door flew open and I fell across the threshold unconscious.