“Oh, Dieu! Oh, Dieu!” His little song died suddenly. He had reached the clearing where his hut had stood; in place of it a heap of smouldering ashes met his eyes—gray, dull-red, black, and smoking. Gone! All gone! The home camp, with its little Christmas trimmings, its strings of moss, its table, its pitiful high stool—all gone, and a mass of ashes remained in their place. Their smoke twined slowly upward into the trees and disappeared in the wide, wide air above. Silence—infinite silence! A faint spluttering now and then as the cold snow quenched the hot embers; beyond this stillness, solitude.
Jules stared with heavy eyes, a tearing pain at his heart, which beat thickly and fast. A split of pine caught his sight; on its white surface was roughly traced, “Bon Noël, Verbaux.—T.” That was all. Many intertracting snow-shoe tracks showed how the poor little home had been destroyed. An apathetic mood controlled Jules. He looked at the remnants of his Christmas shelter with drooping eyes. “Oh, Dieu! Bon Dieu!” he repeated over and over again. Then he changed swiftly; a blaze of anger came to the gray eyes, and his muscles heaved and surged under the caribou jacket. “Sacré-é-é-é!” he growled; then fury interrupted the words, and only inarticulate sounds came. “Jules Verbaux he goin’ show to you h’all vat he do for dees!”
He turned, and struck off rapidly to the westward. It was nearly night; the snow was coming fast, and the wind had increased in force, but Jules hurried on, seemingly imbued with a supernatural power; his strides were tremendous, and the clogging white on his snow-shoes did not affect him in the least. On in the darkness and falling curtains of snow he went; on over hill and across barren, the wind tearing at his clothes, and hurling the stinging drift in his face; on through the woods, where the trees roared their discomfort; on across lakes, where the ice was swept bare, and where his snow-shoes slid three feet to every stride; on in ravines, where the gale curled the flying snow over the sharp edges; on over ice-clumps, where the drift beat itself to tiny pieces on the jagged sides. The miles came, were passed, and fell behind. Jules travelled on tirelessly, like a steel machine, his snow-shoes rising, falling, rising, falling, ever and always in that long, regular step. Twenty, thirty, thirty-five miles had come and gone, but Jules sped on. Then daylight with its dim gray appeared, and broadened over the white wastes; the flakes came from farther up in the lowering skies, always whirling, racing down.
At last the post buildings stood before him, dimly visible through the screens of white; the flag was frozen to its mast, and crackled when the vicious blasts of wind sought to tear it from its hold. The post was awake, alive; blue smoke issued from the chimneys, and faded away in the grasp of the storm. The roofs were covered deep with a white coat, and the tepees outside the stockade were mounds of snow with only the tops of the poles visible. Jules went round the clearing, keeping under cover of the timber, and came up behind the store. Within all was gaiety and laughter; through the window-panes he saw the children and the women dancing about a little spruce tree, whose branches scintillated with Christmas candles, and beneath which were cakes and presents tied with coloured caribou-thongs. Tritou, Le Grand, Le Bossu, Dumois, old Maquette, and all the other trappers were there, standing in a circle round the tree. The factor, his red face shining with perspiration, was making speeches and giving presents to all.
“Jules goin’ feex you touts!” he snarled, and quickly gathered dry wood and limbs and piled them against the logs of the store wall; he went off, and brought other heaps, and placed them against all the post buildings, where the wind should catch the flames the best and hurry them on to their work of destruction. All was ready. Verbaux lighted a match and held it under the wood-heap at the store; the bit of pine flared and went out. He struck another; it too flashed, then the wind put out its feeble blaze.
Jules stopped, thought, and looked in the window again. The children were opening their parcels, and screaming with delight at the little toys and knickknacks that appeared. Gradually his eyes softened. “Ah had leetle papoose—vonce; she vould lak’ dat!” he said, and the tears came again to the deep eyes, and coursed unhindered down the bronzed cheeks. The snow fell against the panes, and dimmed his view of the interior, but the cheery Christmas candles shone blurredly through the mist.
“Ah no goin’ do dees!” he said huskily. “No hurrrt vomans an’ leetle vones; she vould not lak’ for me to do eet. Have good Noél, enfants! Mes petits, geeve merci to le bon Dieu. Somme taime, Tritou, Ah feex you! Ah, enfants, have plaisir; t’ink somme taime of Verbaux, h’alon’, seul, hongree, wid’out home, wid’out anyzing in de fores’ an’ la tempête.” He looked wistfully at the warm, happy scene within, then turned abruptly away and disappeared across the clearing silently, hidden by the ever-falling quantities of snow.
VII
“REMEMBER JULES!”
It was noon. The day was bright and warm, and as Jules rested on a snow clump at the upper end of the Big Barren, he took off his muffler and fur cap and mopped his broad forehead. The sky was an opal blue; not a cloud to be seen anywhere above the horizon; the sun was comforting and genial in its heat, and the crust melted fast.