“Merci, Jean, Ah go maintenant get des poils; au revoir!”
Verbaux, snow-shoes on his feet, went out of the yard and struck off northwest across the white country. His ankles were stiff and lame, but he travelled at a good pace. He crossed a large river, frozen solid and three feet of snow over the ice. The land on both sides was level and sunken for many miles back. “Rivière du Grand Marais,” Jules said to himself, and shifted his course to west. The sun was three-quarters low when he reached the timber-lands. After an hour’s tramp he stopped, threw off the fur tote-bag that contained his food, and in a short time built a little lean-to of bark and branches; then he cut some fire-wood, and went off into the deep forest to make and set his traps. When the work was finished he had twenty traps ready, and he went back to the lean-to and built a roaring fire.
The evening was a beautiful one; the stars came out one by one and glimmered with their cold gray, celestial light. The water in the pannikin on the fire bubbled, and Jules dropped some cherry-tree tea in it, then munched chunks of pemmican slowly, staring at the flames before him. The meal over, he lay down in his blanket by the heat, his head resting on one hand.
The red flames sprang fiercely in the air, subsided, sprang again, while the embers underneath glowed white-hot, pink, and dull-red. The gray eyes filled with great tears. “Marie! Marie!” The strong head was buried between the arms, and here, in the silence and solitude of the deep black forest, Jules gave way for the first time, and rasping, choking sobs came. The changing, shifting, glancing light played over the prostrate figure that heaved. The giant trees about were motionless, their high peaks silhouetted against the dark heavens, like teeth of an uneven saw. At last the long figure lay quiet, the fire lessened slowly, then smoke came instead of flames and twisted its way through the intervening branches into the free air and was lost. A dark, lithe thing edged gingerly from the shadows toward the sleeping man, sniffing the air delicately and moving without sound; it came close, then scented the human body and scurried away, flitting ghost-like between the black trunks until it disappeared. A marten, its curiosity aroused, scampered swiftly hither and thither about the lean-to, searching, smelling, stopping, then scampering off again with its queer long little jumps, and it too went away.
The fire was out completely, but a few tiny wreaths of haze came from the ashes. Jules slept, his head on his arms, the long limbs resting in graceful repose on the blanket.
The silence, the infinite silence, was deep and wonderful; not a breath of wind moved the weakest branch on the trees, not a light breeze even disturbed the ashes. The cold moon sailed up and across and down again over the noiseless landscape. Then the stars faded and their twinkling lights were gone. The air grew warm and a blackness settled over everything where the steel light had been. Clouds, black, gray, lowering clouds, came, and soon the patter of thousands of raindrops sounded. These lasted but a few minutes, then changed to big white flakes that fell silently. Jules turned in his sleep.
“Ma femme, Marie!” he muttered, and tossed restlessly.
A whispering came sibilant and faint through the forest.
“La petite! la petite! she call!”
The big figure rose in the falling snow, the eyes were wide open and set; straight ahead Jules went till he stumbled over a log and fell, awaking. “Bon Dieu, Ah see la petite dat taime!” he groaned aloud. The dull black depths of the branches overhead choked the sound of his voice, and he stood, half awake, dreaming and wondering.