Just at present Bertha was much too busy to notice the monotony. The days were only about half long enough for all that she had to do in them, and the nights seemed only about half long enough either for the amount of sleeping that she desired to get through.
Housework had scanty attention just now. Other things were so much more important, and so the things which mattered least had to go. She had discovered that she could shoot birds, and although she simply hated to do it, the birds were such a valuable addition to the food supply, that she forced herself to the necessary hardness of heart. Of course, if she did not shoot them somebody else would, or the poor creatures would die of want when the snow came, or a dozen evil fates might befall them, and, comforting herself with these reflections, she took out Tom’s gun every morning and did such execution among the prairie chicken, that the little household was well supplied still, even though the master of the house was far away.
Bill Humphries had brought her over a dog, and already the creature was of the utmost value in retrieving the chicken, so that she was spared the horror of having to dispatch the birds which she had only winged. The children always prepared the birds for cooking, and were by this time quite expert at the task, which would certainly have taken away Bertha’s appetite if she had had it to do.
In the middle of the second week after Tom went away there came a letter from him, the last that they could receive, so they believed, until his party made their way back to civilization once more. It was written from a place beyond Porcupine Mountains, where the expedition had halted for a week of exploring in a wild district into which, so far as they could discover, no white man had ever penetrated before.
Tom was in his element. There was a great love of primitive life in him, and very often during his days at Duck Flats the call of the wild had been almost too strong to resist, would have been quite too strong, probably, had not his duty bound him with fetters of steel. So now that it was his duty to go forth, he could enjoy the adventurous days to the full, and indulge his bent for prospecting as he had never been able to do before.
So far he had not discovered the real intentions of the expedition. Sometimes he was disposed to think that they were merely out on a general survey in the interests probably of some syndicate, formed for the purpose of buying up land, but there were indications in plenty that they were keeping their eyes very widely open for everything else which was there to be seen. The men were promised bonuses on certain finds, in addition to their pay, and this had the effect of making everyone exceedingly alert; for who should say what riches the wilderness might not reveal to those who had eyes to see them?
“Poor Tom! this will seem like a real holiday to him after his hard years of homesteading,” said Grace, with a sigh of content for her husband, when she had read and re-read the letter which had come to her from the edge of the unknown.
Bertha looked at her and marvelled anew at her patience. Surely it must have needed a tremendous amount of courage to consent to his going, seeing how helpless Grace was, yet she had never, by word or look, tried to hold him back, but had sent him forth with a heroic cheerfulness which had been a credit even to a strong woman.
“I suppose that he will have to work pretty hard there. They would hardly pay so well if they did not expect some adequate return for their money,” Bertha remarked as, by dint of much pushing and tugging, she got Grace on to the wheeled chair and dragged it into the bedroom, where, by dint of more pushing and tugging, she got her on to the bed, which was all the change of place and position the invalid could have.
“Oh yes, there will be awful work to be done,” answered Grace. “Those poor fellows will have to stagger along under burdens that will make their shoulders raw, they will be footsore and thirsty, they will be scorched with heat, devoured by mosquitoes, and, later on, they will be nearly starved from the lowness of their food supplies, and frozen by the bitter cold. And yet, if I know them, it will seem like one long picnic, and they will go on from day to day with the zest of school-boys out on holiday. I should love it myself, I know. Why, when I was a child I was always wishing that I had lived about a hundred years ago, so that I could have been carried off by Micmacs or had adventures of sorts. And really, you know, life nowadays is very tame indeed.”