"It was a terrible thing to look upon to those two who knew its significance—that flag glowing like a splotch of blood there in the brazen sky."
Drawn by Frank E. Schoonover
Even as they spoke the cabin door opened and a man stepped out. His features were indistinguishable, but both could see that he was a large man, for his bulk had filled the doorway. He swung a heavy pack to a toboggan which stood waiting before the door with the dogs in harness. The next moment the form of a woman appeared in the doorway. She evidently called to the man, for he halted abruptly and faced about, shook his fist at her and, turning, resumed his course, while with an appealing gesture the woman stretched out her arms toward him.
Then rapidly as it had formed, the picture faded and the two awe-struck watchers stood gazing at the frost spicules that glittered brassily in the unwholesome light of the false suns.
Once more the Indian buried his face in his arms and muffled, moaning words fell from his lips: "De red death—de white death! It is mesahchee tamahnawus! We die! We die!"
Again Connie shook him roughly, and meeting with no response, beat his arms from his face with the loaded butt of his dog whip.
"You're a crazy fool!" cried the boy, with his lips close to the Indian's ear. "We're not going to die—anyway, not till we've had a run for our money! We're going to mush! Do you hear? Mush! And we're going to keep on mushing till we find that cabin! And if you hang back or quit, I'm going to wind this walrus hide whip around you till I cut you in strips—do you get it?" And, without another word, the boy turned, whipped the dogs to their feet, and leaving the river abruptly, led off straight into the north across the low, snow-covered ridge.
Of the two brothers Bossuet, Victor, the elder, was loved in the North; and René was hated. And the reason for this lay in the men themselves. Both were rivermen—good rivermen—and both laboured each year during the long days of the summer months, together with many other rivermen, in working the Hudson's Bay brigade of scows down the three great connecting rivers to the frozen sea. For between Athabasca Landing and Fort McPherson lie two thousand miles of wilderness—a wilderness whose needs are primitive but imperative, having to do with life and death. And the supplies for this vast wilderness must go in without fail each year by the three rivers, the Athabasca, the Slave, and the Mackenzie. These are not gentle rivers flowing smoothly between their banks, but are great torrents of turbulent waters that rush wildly into the North in miles upon miles of foaming white water, in sheer cascades, and in boiling, rock-ribbed rapids. So that the work of the rivermen is man's work requiring skill and iron nerve, and requiring also mighty muscles for the gruelling portages where cargoes must be carried piece by piece over rough foot trails, and in places even the heavy scows themselves must be man-hauled around cascades.