It was the day before Christmas. Jules was sitting in his home camp, sixty miles from the post; he was lonely and sad. “Las’ NoËl Ah have ma femme, la petite, touts; an’ maintenant—” he looked about the bare little room, “bon Dieu, ’Ow lonelee eet ees!”

It was a cheerless scene. Walls of bare logs, with moss plugged between them to keep out the cold; a rude table; two misshapen stools; a bed of boughs in one corner, with some blankets heaped on it; a little chimney of small timber sticking out diagonally in another corner; and a few old clothes hanging on wooden pegs near the door.

“Ah, b’en,” Jules said to himself, “eet ees de will of le bon Dieu. Ah mus’ mak’ t’ink dat de wife an’ de leetle vone aire veet’ me for to-mor’ jus’ same.” He became full of life with the thought, and bustled about the little hut, sweeping the hard ground with a spruce bough broom; he carried out the old bed, and filled its place with fresh aromatic boughs; then he brought streamers of moss from the woods, and festooned them around the walls. In the corners he built little canopies of dark green branches, and hung bunches of scarlet berries over the gray logs. The old clothes were neatly wrapped up and stowed away under the boughs; on their pegs he hung a big caribou-skin, its gray-brown colour mingling with the green of the interior. He cleaned out the little fireplace, and filled it with bright pine chips and dry wood.

“Dere!” he said, surveying his work, “dat mor’ good; de leet’ vone she lak’ dees comme Ça!” and tears came to the gray eyes. He brushed them away hurriedly, and went out to a tiny shed behind the hut. There he dug a quarter of caribou-meat from the snow, and carrying it back, he cut thick, juicy steaks; these he placed in a rough frying-pan, and set it on the table. From a hewn box he brought out a little bag of tea, some salt, and some hard bread. Then he drew the two stools up to the board. “Dere ees onlee two place’; la petite she vant place too!” Taking the axe, he went out, and in a few minutes had made a high stool; this he also put beside the table.

“Maintenant, Jules, go fin’ somme present for dose two for NoËl.”

Outside it was snowing a little; the crisp flakes dropped gently through the trees, and the tops of the spruce bowed gracefully, swayed by the light north wind; they sighed, and murmured softly to one another. Jules put on his snow-shoes, drew the fur cap well down over his ears, and went off into the dull forest.

The skies turned a darker lead-colour; they seemed to threaten something, and Jules said to himself as he travelled along, “De snow she comme ver’ queeck!” and hastened on. Over hill and through valley he went till he came to his traps; luck was against him: trap after trap was empty and unsprung. He went all the way down this line, and not a skin! He looked up at the heavens: it was snowing as ever; the crystalline bits floated from their home in the clouds softly and noiselessly. There was no wind at all now, and Jules listened for something, he knew not what. Everything was silent; the spruce and pine stood like martyrs, bravely holding up the heavy masses of snow that the skies had poured on them. Sometimes a branch would rebel and drop its load with a swish; as it flew back, relieved, it seemed to jar on the stillness of everything, until it ceased its swaying and became quiet as the rest.

“Ah go to ligne five,” he decided, and changed his course to northeast. His way lay across wild barrens, and he stopped again to listen: the solitude was wonderful; only the unceasing, silent fall of snow. It came faster now, and the frost morsels covered Jules’s caribou jacket with a dainty white coat that rested lightly on the hairs, their prismatic forms plainly visible. He went on and on. “At las’!” he said as he came to the first trap on ligne five. A fine marten lay under the deadfall, its sleek hair smoothed close to the little frozen body; the eyes were open and stared glassily on Jules as he lifted the heavy stick and put the stiff form in his bag. “Merci, bon Dieu!” whispered Jules, as he found almost every trap with its little victim dead and frozen. The line led through a deep ravine, and Jules’s eyes gleamed when he came on a heavy trap. A big black fox lay dead in it; the massive log had crushed out the life God had given. On the crust were pitiful scratches where the poor beast had tried frantically to pull away from the awful weight that tortured it. “Ah-ha! Dat magnifique!” said Jules aloud, as he lifted the fall and drew out the long, sinuous body. The heavy black coat was glossy and thick; the under hair seemed to reflect darkly the faint light that came from the leaden skies. “La petite up dere”—Jules looked at the heavens as he spoke—“she ver’ content wid dees.” He turned, and started for home.

It was snowing harder, and his down tracks were only dimly discernible through the opaque cover over them. The wind was coming slowly; a murmur rose and fell weirdly in the forest; the trees moved, bowed to one another, and shook off their white dress. Out on the barrens the drift was whirling along, mingled with the fresh fall, and Jules’s snow-shoes clicked with a deadened sound as he hastened on. A herd of caribou crossed before him, their hoofs rattling faintly as they raced on with the wind. They came, and were gone in a few moments, wrapped in the clouds of snow-dust which their fast-moving feet stirred from its resting-place on the crust. Jules stopped at the edge of a timber patch, and examined marks at his feet, not long made. “Vone, deux, t’ree, five snow-shoe!” he said grimly, and swung off to the left. He went on carefully, listening every now and then; nothing but the whispering of the wind in the tree-tops answered his quest for sound. The hut was close by now; the tracks he had seen five miles back had disappeared, so Jules approached with a pathetic gladness in his heart. “Jules goin’ have NoËl jus’ sam’!” he said, and then he sang a French Christmas song as he saw the clearing in the distance.

“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.