"Manikawan will do as White Brother of the Snow directs," she answered. "She will minister to his friend's needs. She will make for his friend the nabwe. His friend will not be hungry. Manikawan will care for him until White Brother of the Snow is weary of hunting and comes again to Sishetakushin's lodge. She will do this because he is the friend of White Brother of the Snow."
Then Bob turned into the white, frigid waste to the southward, and Shad was alone with the Indians.
CHRISTMAS AT THE RIVER TILT
Christmas fell on Thursday that year, and it had been arranged that the trappers, by turning back on their trails the preceding Saturday instead of waiting as was their custom until Monday, and by slighting some of the less important sections of the trails on their return trip, should gather at the river tilt on Wednesday evening, in order to celebrate the holiday with a feast.
It was late on Christmas eve when Ungava Bob, returning from the Indian camp, drew his toboggan into the clearing in the centre of which stood the river tilt. Its roof was scarcely visible in the moonlight above the high drifted snow. He had hoped that some of the others might have arrived before him, but no smoke issued from the pipe, and fresh drifted, untrodden snow around the door told him that he was the first.
It was fearfully cold. Rime filled the air. The deerskin coat which Manikawan had given him, and which he wore, was thick coated with frost.
He paused before the door and stood for a moment to painfully pick away the ice that had accumulated upon his eyelashes, partially closing his eyelids, and discovered that his nose and cheeks were frost-bitten. He drew his right hand from its mitten, and holding his nose in the bare palm, covered the exposed hand with the mittened palm of the other, quickly rubbing the frosted parts with the warm palm to restore circulation.
Presently, satisfied that the frost had been removed from nose and cheeks, he kicked off his snowshoes, shovelled the accumulated snow from the doorway with one of them, set the snowshoes on end in the snow at one side, and entering the tilt lighted a candle and kindled a fire in the stove.
Taking the kettle from the stove and an axe from a corner, he passed out of the tilt and down to the river, chopped open the water hole, filled the kettle, and returning set it over to heat.