Morning Star rose, and looking at the heavens that sparkled with the diamond lights of the stars, he answered in a sing-song voice:
“Ah-ta-tah-ke-bou-tis-in, your words are heard by the Manitou; you ask, he answers through me: do as you would do for the best”; and Morning Star relapsed into silence again and smoked on.
Then sharply over the soothing quiet sounded the yelping bark of a fox. Once, twice, thrice, the piercing note thrilled and echoed, then quiet, with its suggestiveness of peace, fell over everything.
And Verbaux thought deeply: on one hand, his heart’s desire and his cravings; on the other, his duty as he saw it. “Ah t’ink dat h’all mus’ go ’way, partir, f’om dees place; dere ees no de facteur, ve can no stand h’off autre h’attack; Ah no desire stay ici; an’ Ah say, den, dat to-mor’, v’en de sonne comme h’ovaire de tree, dat ve brûler dis poste, dat vous h’all go, partez, to Maison du Lac, an’ dat moi, Ah go to Reliance!”
Morning Star nodded, the others grunted their approval and betook themselves to sleep and rest. So did Verbaux, and nothing moved in the post but the four sentries that paced silently up and down, across, and between the log openings.
The night was dark and the air damp and still; at daylight snow fell swiftly; the cold white bits massed themselves on everything; shapes grew, becoming distorted and vague. The soft murmuring of the trees as they bowed to and fro in the light wind came faintly through the screens of white; like veils of down, the big flakes floated to the earth, silently and relentlessly. The sentries gathered together, and their guttural whisperings sounded thick and muffled on the heavy air; one lighted his pipe, and the faint glow of the match showed the four faces close together, and cast thin shadows behind their ears. Up and down, up and down they paced again, their figures moving by unseen motion in the dim half-morning light. The smell of burnt wood was blown about by the eddying draft that moved within the walls, seeking its way out. Then from somewhere floated a cry—an unknown, indescribable tone that vibrated, thrilled a moment, and died away.
“Qu’est-ce?” asked one of the Indians. No answer: the others were listening. Only the snow silence could be heard; the minute settling of the flakes on the logs, the drifting of the heavier ones against the buildings, was audible; beyond these nothing was felt but the peace of the coming of day, that hour when everything is truly still, when man sleeps the heaviest, when animals are about to wake, but have not moved from their night’s bed. The sentries watched from their loopholes and saw the light come stronger and stronger; saw the outlines of the clearing define themselves; saw the branches of the trees stand out clearer and clearer from the mass and become separate; saw them bending farther and farther with their load of white, and finally could see through the dull gloom of the forest trunks, and discern the stillness of everything. The atmosphere changed suddenly; it became steel-like in its sting of cold. The falling snow was harder and the wind increased, blowing it into the men’s faces in biting myriads. The light was chilling and gray; comfortless and repellent. For a fleeting instant one yellow ray of the coming sun forced itself athwart the pallid heavens, then it was gone and all was bleak and stern again.
A fire was lighted by a tepee; voices came and went; then more fires shone uncertainly through the changing, ever-falling white, and the post was awake. Dull and lifeless seemed the inhabitants as they moved hither and thither solemnly. For were they not to leave their homes to-day and go into the Unknown of the wilderness? Breakfasts were eaten in quiet; the flames that boiled the tea and cooked the meal alone gave life to the cheerless scene. And afterward came the tearing down of homes, the packing of necessities and little family treasures, the gathering of all outside the stockade. Jules had arranged everything, and now he went, firebrand in hand, from building to shed and building, setting them all ablaze. As the lurid fires shot skyward he took off his fur cap and muttered “Adieu!” with the rest. “Dieu soit veet’ you h’all!” he said then, and gravely watched the trappers and their families as they disappeared, with the wounded on the dog-teams, into the dense timber-land beyond. He listened for their voices, and a feeling of loneliness, of longing for some one, came over him with unpitying force. The buildings burned with roars and crashings, and the billows of sparks were lifted up and carried far into the snow air. And still he watched, fascinated: shed by shed, log house by log house, the post caught, flared, and fell before him. At last the stockade caught the conflagration, and rings of fire crept slowly round it; and then it was all gone but heaps of smouldering ashes.
“Adieu encore,” Jules said as he swung about and went off under the thick trees, his snow-shoes sounding dully as he strode along.