The Youngest Sister: A Tale of Manitoba

by Bessie Marchant

When the supplies ran short, and the Expedition, unable to find their cache, were faced with starvation, the members drew lots for two of them to take the risk of working their way back, through the constantly recurring blizzards and over the wide stretches of trackless country, to the nearest point of civilization, whence help could be obtained. The lots fell to Tom Ellis and the brother of Eunice Long, and when they started they believed that they were going to certain death, but the lot had fallen to them and it was their duty to go.

So many times death stared them in the face, that it was like a miracle they did not perish on the way. The poor man Long had to be left at the first Indian encampment upon which they chanced, for he was so badly frost-bitten that he could not stand upon his feet. From that time Tom Ellis had to press on alone; then he fell into a wolf trap set by an Indian, from which he was fished out more dead than alive, and he lay for weeks too ill to remember the errand on which he set out, and he must have died but for the kindness and the care of the wild people, who were hard pressed themselves for food.

As soon as he was able to walk he set out again, but the very first point of civilization which he reached was an outlying settlement, where the news had been first carried of the disaster which had overtaken the Expedition, and then he knew that he had failed. The knowledge was so bitter, that at the first he was ready to lie down and die from sheer despair at having failed. But the thought of his helpless wife and the little children waiting for him at home spurred him on to make the final effort necessary to get home, and when he had rested a little he set forth again; but it is certain that he would never have reached home alive, had it not been for Edgar Bradgate having to fetch the doctor in the middle of the night, when the horse found his prostrate body lying in the middle of the trail.

Great was the rejoicing at Pentland Broads when it was found that both Tom Ellis and the brother of Eunice Long were alive. Young Semple and the red-haired Fricker set off for the Indian encampment to bring home Mr. Long; but for the present Eunice stayed on at Duck Flats, and left the nursing of Tom Ellis to the doctor’s housekeeper, for death had come to the solitary little house in the wheatfields, and Bertha could not be left alone at such a time.

Uncle Joe had never recovered consciousness, but had slipped out of life immediately after the doctor’s arrival, so he never knew the joyful news of which the doctor was the bearer on that bright spring morning.

If there was no real grief, but only gentle regret for the old man who had hastened his own end by the violence of his passions, that was surely more his own fault than that of anyone else, since it is open to everyone who comes into this world to earn love and to keep it. They were sorry for him, but there was no sense of loss—the bitter feeling of emptiness which constitutes real grief.

He was laid to rest in the bare little burying ground at the back of the meeting house, while Edgar Bradgate and Bertha were the chief mourners, because there was no one else to stand in that position. Poor Tom was too ill to be told anything about it, and Grace, of course, was not fit for the exertion of following anyone to the grave, because she could not as yet stand upon her feet. One thing, however, she insisted upon, and that was that she should be carried over to Pentland Broads to see her husband, and although the journey must have shaken her very much, the joy of being with him again was so great that it did her more good than harm.

It was Edgar Bradgate who drove the pair of them back over the rough trail to their home as soon as the doctor would allow Tom to be moved, and, as the long miles had to be covered at a pace which would not shake the two invalids unduly, it was not wonderful that the talk which was indulged in grew very intimate and confidential before the end of the journey was reached.

Edgar told them that he wanted to marry Bertha, but that he dared not ask her because he had discovered the fact of her writing, and he feared that a girl with a literary future before her would not care to tie herself to a poor man.

“Still it is not fair to Bertha that she should not have the chance of doing what she pleased,” said Grace, while a flush of colour rose in her pale cheeks.