"No, there was none with me save Mahng and his brother and their wives. We have travelled long and wearily since Edith was torn from my arms, and of her fate I know nothing. I was being taken to the north that I might marry Suggema, the son of Mahng, who believed that my father would thus be compelled to withdraw his curse."
"And did you wish for this marriage?" asked Donald, curiously.
"Did I not say that I was on the point of throwing myself from yonder cliff to escape the misery of such a thing?"
"Forgive me, my sister," said the young man, humbly. "I had no cause to doubt you, nor do I. It was a thoughtless question."
With their mission thus partly fulfilled, Donald and Atoka were confronted by the serious problem of what move to make next. The season was nearing winter. In a short time the streams would be frozen, and the forest trails choked with snow. They had no canoe and it was too late in the year to peel bark with which to construct one. Their supply of food was scanty, and very soon the game on which they were wholly dependent would disappear from that part of the country. Then, too, Ah-mo's strength was so nearly spent that she was in no condition for rough travel, even had they the means to go and a knowledge of what direction to take. So, after a long discussion, it was reluctantly decided that they must remain where they were until the coming of spring with its flowing sap should enable them to build another canoe, and resume their search for Donald's sister.
The succeeding weeks were filled with busy and arduous toil. A winter in that latitude, where the mercury often falls to 20 degrees and even 30 degrees below zero, can only be successfully encountered after elaborate preparation, and the little company who now found themselves stranded on the verge of that vast northern forest, had everything to do, with but slight means and scanty time. The followers of Mahng had abandoned many things in their hasty flight which now proved of the utmost value, and a welcome addition to the limited outfit of Donald and Atoka. Among these things were several blankets, an axe, and a few rude cooking-utensils.
These they removed to the spot selected for their winter home, about a mile from the river on the bank of a small stream that flowed into it and near by a pond formed by an old and very large beaver dam. Here, before night of that first day, a snug hut of bark was erected for Ah-mo's accommodation, and from here the young men set forth the next morning on the busiest season of hunting and trapping in which either of them had ever engaged. Everything that wore fur or feathers and could furnish meat to be smoked or dried for future use was eagerly sought. Their success was phenomenal. Deer, bear, turkeys, and geese fell before their rifles, while their traps, in the construction of which Atoka was a past-master, yielded beaver, otter, muskrat, and raccoons.
Within a month they had collected such a quantity of meat and skins as assured them against both hunger and cold between then and spring. Now they turned their attention to a house, and, with only their ready axes for tools, they had one finished two weeks later that they surveyed with genuine pleasure and pardonable pride. It was of logs, notched and fitted together at the corners, twelve feet square and with walls six feet high. It was chinked with moss, had a tight floor of hewed cedar planks, a roof of hemlock bark, a chimney and fireplace of stones cemented with blue clay and sand, two small windows covered with scraped and tightly stretched intestines taken from a deer, and a stout door hung on wooden hinges.
The hut was hardly ready for occupancy before the winter storms set in and the whole forest world was buried in snow. Still the inmates of "Castle Beaver," as Donald named their cosy dwelling, were by no means idle nor did an hour of time hang heavily on their hands for lack of occupation. Ah-mo had gathered an immense supply of flags and sedge grass, from which she not only braided enough of the matting, so commonly used among the northern tribes, to enclose her own corner of the hut, but to cover all the interior walls as well. The floor was warmly spread with skins, from which their couches were also formed.
Besides always adding to the comforts of their home, they found plenty of indoor work in the way of cutting out buckskin and fur garments which were sewed with deer sinew, the making of snowshoes and wooden bowls, and the braiding of mats. For recreation Donald told tales of the great world beyond the sea, Ah-mo related incidents of her life in Montreal, and Atoka recalled many a weird Indian legend. They also played simple games. Atoka was taught to read and write from copies set by Donald, while all three improved their knowledge of English, French, and several Indian dialects. For outside work there were traps to be visited, snow to be cleared from the path leading to the river, the water hole through the ice to be chopped out every day, water to be fetched, wood to be cut for the roaring fireplace, fish to be caught through the ice in the pond, and an occasional hunt to be taken after fresh meat.