“And this—this son you speak of, is—?” Donald could not say the name.
“Charley Seguis.”
Bewildered, distraught, blinded, Donald turned on his heel, and, groping for support, staggered from the cabin.
[CHAPTER XVII]
THE COMPANION OF MANY TRAILS
Into the minds and hearts of the folk who live their lives in the wild, there are bred certain animal traits. The good trapper learns that, like rabbit or bob-cat, he must be able to freeze into statuesque immobility at the sudden appearance of danger. Nature, who does her best to protect her children, sees to it that the trapper's costume soon resembles nothing so much as a hoary tree-trunk. And the men who tramp the wild gradually assimilate the silent, furtive ways of the intelligent forest folk. The wounded caribou drags himself to some inaccessible thicket, there either to gain back strength or die unobserved and alone. Sickness and feebleness are the only inexcusable faults of wild animal life, and offer sufficient reason for death if hunger is fierce. Unconsciously, Donald McTavish had absorbed the trait of mute sufferings from his years in the heart of nature. Not only had he absorbed it, but it had been handed down to him through generations of wilderness-loving McTavishes; it was part of his blood, just as the hatred of wolves as destroyers of fur-bearing game was part of it.
So, now, with this burden upon his heart almost greater than he could bear, he hurried through the camp, seeing no one, not even hearing the greetings of friends who had not spoken to him before. At his tent, he mechanically fastened on his snowshoes, and strode away into the depths of the forest with his hurt, like a wounded animal. When, finally, the sounds from the camp no longer reached him, he sat down on a fallen tree that broke through the surface of the snow. For a long while, he did not reason: reason was beyond him now. He felt as though something had been done to his brain that rendered it stunned and helpless. Even yet, he did not fully realize the thing that had come to him.
“That fiend lies, curse him; he lies, I say!” he muttered, presently.
“But yet, if it wasn't true, he wouldn't dare,” was the unanswerable reply.
He knew Angus Fitzpatrick well enough to realize that the old man never took a step without being sure it would bear his weight. He had always been so. It was not likely that he would change now, particularly when there was so much at stake.