Considerably sobered by this, I arose and cut the figure of eight thoughtfully for five minutes. After this I resumed my rapid pace, which I kept up until the necessity of pausing to recover breath impressed me. Making a wide circle outwards with my left leg in the air and my right hand pointed to the sky in the most approved manner, I gradually caused the circle to diminish until I came to a stand.
Looking back, I saw Fort Wichikagan like a mere speck on the horizon. In the opposite direction the lake still presented a limitless horizon. On either side the distant shores marked, but could hardly be said to bound, the view, while, closer at hand, the islets were reflected in the ice as clearly as if it had been water. I felt as if standing on a liquid ocean. Once more a bounding sense of joyous freedom and strength filled me. The starry corruscations had vanished. The bump on the back of my head had ceased to grieve me. Away I went again like—but words fail me. Imagery and description avail nothing when the indescribable is reached!
After an hour of this enjoyment I took to circling, and, in the exuberance of my feelings, attempted some quite new and complex performances, which resulted in a few more corruscations and bumps. But these were trifles. I heeded them not.
At last, however, I stood still and became thoughtful. We must all become thoughtful sooner or later. A sense of loneliness began to oppress me, and I longed for companionship in my joy. Knowing that this was a useless longing, I cast it aside and resumed my evolutions, rushes, bumps, and corruscations. But it would not do. The longing returned with redoubled violence. After another hour I turned to skate homeward, very much toned down in spirits, and deeply convinced of the truth—in more senses than one—of the words, “It is not good that man should be alone.”
Before leaving this subject I may add that I tried skating again the next day, but again grew weary of it in less than an hour for want of companionship; that I made up my mind, in disgust to try no more; and that, on the day following, sympathetic Nature aided me in my resolve by covering the entire lake with eighteen inches of snow—thus rendering my once favourite exercise impossible.
But, to return. When I drew near to the fort, I observed that several black specks were gliding with lightning speed down the white track on the hillside which Lumley had undertaken to finish. These specks, after descending the steep hill, slid over the level shore and shot far out upon the lake, where some of them seemed to roll over and over. Wondering what this could be, I put on a spurt. Suddenly the truth dawned upon me. My friend Lumley had cleared the slope for the purpose of sledging down it!
“Max,” he had remarked to me, long before, when talking about our men and our plans, “‘All work and no play,’ you know, ‘makes Jack a dull boy;’ so I’ll get up some kind of winter amusement for the lads which will keep them in health and spirits.”
Need I say that my recent cogitations and experience led me to join this riotous crew with redoubled ardour? Taking off my skates hurriedly and climbing up the hill, I leaped on the tail of Big Otter’s toboggan, without invitation, just as he was starting at the top of the snow-slope to follow Lumley. I gave the sled such an impetus that we overtook our chief, and upset him just as he reached the lake, causing him to collide with Donald Bane and James Dougall, who, seated on the same toboggan, were anxiously striving to keep their balance. The result was, that we all resolved ourselves into a conglomerate of toboggans and men, which went shooting and struggling over the smooth lake for fifty yards or upwards at the rate of twelve miles an hour, if not more. This, of course, afforded unutterable delight to the rest of our men, and to Waboose and her mother; as well as to several Indians, who had just arrived. Among these last were Attick and Maqua with his son Mozwa.
It was rough but health-giving, as well as enjoyable, work, and sent us to our respective beds that night in a condition of readiness to fall promptly into a state of absolute oblivion.