I arranged it all most successfully. I really believe I am diplomatic. Mr. Bang asked me to go snow-shoeing with him this morning. We went. The sky was bright, the wind was up and it was very cold, almost numbing. We crossed Norway Lake, and down into the forest, and then we felt no wind, and as we walked and walked, I felt a gentle glow come over me.
I soon found I lost myself in the interest I gained in Mr. Bang’s conversation, just as I did one day long ago. He told me of the forest wilds of British Columbia, and trappers’ tales of the deer, and the martin, and the fisher, and the beaver, and that strange creature, the Canada-Jay, or Whiskey Jack.
“You talk like an animal story book,” I remarked.
“Do I?” he asked. “I’m sorry. The animal story men are fakers, and I would not like you to think me a faker. There is not a trapper in the West who is not more or less conversant with the writings of this class of authors. All I have heard speak of them, damn them up and down. Even I dislike them, and wonder at the public taste. But then the public is an ass.”
Wapoose is the rabbit of the North. His tracks were everywhere about. In the North everybody, everything lives on the rabbit. The Indians, trappers, the owls, the fox, the wolf, all feast upon poor wapoose. And like many another faithful friend he is despised.
But the silence of the forest is oppressive. Stepping into it one feels as if one entered the realm of nature. One feels the temporary guest of the world where a ceaseless war is being waged, in which the fittest only survive, where animal life is maintained by the death of animal life. Nature is as cruel as a steel-trap that the fur-hunter sets for the fox.
And the trees stand about spectral in the silence; the firs and spruces with their branches laden with snow-droop as if in shame. They picture modesty. The clatter of a squirrel, or the squeak of a tom-tit, or the hammer, hammer of the woodpecker come at long intervals. They merely announce the great oppressive silence, each striking his own note.
All the region round about Norway Lake is a Government game and timber reserve. The streams are filled with beaver and the woods with other fur-bearing animals.
We came to a beaver-dam, Mr. Bang recognizing the rounded ridge in the snow marking the dam and domes of snow marking the houses. He told me of the strange family huddled in these humble homes and the superstitions they have engendered.
And after two hours tramp we came to Napoleon’s cabin. Napoleon is one of the game wardens, and by a strange chance was known to Mr. Bang. Mr. Bang had planned our tramp that we might call on his friend. Napoleon was at home. I really believe Mr. Bang had sent him word we were coming, as everything about the cabin was so neat, and the warm air that greeted us at the open door was in itself hospitable. It told me I might take off my wraps and rest and be comfortable.