There were but few squaws to be seen. “Dey no arriver encore,” Jules muttered. The voyageurs nodded to him in a friendly way; the Indians seemed not to notice his presence, and Le Pendu scowled openly. Verbaux approached one of the fires where French-Canadians breakfasted, and they made room for him to sit. One of them offered Jules his pannikin and plate and motioned toward the food—a caribou-stew that simmered in an iron pot and gave off appetising vapours. Verbaux ate silently; no one spoke to him, and he did not feel the necessity of speech. His meal finished, he went to the factor’s house and asked for orders; and as he stood listening to what the factor said, his eyes wandered longingly through the forest tops, and focused themselves on a white strip of barren that was the horizon, many miles beyond the trees.

“I’ll gie ye dogs, sledge, food, an’ blankit to start wi’; ye’ll sattle wi’ yere fierst lot o’ skin!”

The old prison tepee was given him as his home; five mangy brutes were turned over to his care as his team; a medium-light sledge, two thin blankets, some tea and pemmican completed his indebtedness to the Hudson Bay Company. He smiled a trifle bitterly when the factor concluded his orders by “Do yere worrk weel, mon, an’ ye’ll be recht; eef ye don’t I’ll make ye that feine ye canna be sweeped!” and the throb for freedom and Her came over him hard, but he answered quietly enough, “Oui, M’sieu’ le Facteur,” then turned away, leading the scrawny dogs and dragging the sledge and outfit.

All day he worked steadily, patching up the rotten skins of his tepee, and bringing boughs for his bed. He made his own fire, ate alone, and lived apart from the other inhabitants of the post. When night came again his home was comfortable and warm, and he slept with the prayer for Marie on his lips.

Long before any one was awake the next morning he started off, taking all his food and his blankets. He travelled as fast as his dogs could go until evening, then built a temporary camp at the edge of the open country. He fastened the team after supper, put on his snow-shoes, and crossed out from under the black timber to the barrens. A light breeze was blowing and Jules inhaled great lungsful of its strength. The cold stars glittered above him, and the crust crackled sharply under his weight. In the centre of the space he stopped. Behind and beyond showed the skirts of the woods, like black cords drawn about a white sheet. Shooting comets trailed and flashed athwart the studded heavens, and he wondered whence they came and whither they went. There was no sound but that of the icy myriads as they moved along over the crust, impelled by the breeze.

“Eef Ah onlee could go an’ loook! Eef Ah could go—have libertÉ vonce h’aga’n!” and Jules sighed. “Dat no possible; somme taime Ah get ’way, tell le facteur dat Ah go, an’ den go queeck—somme taime, mabbe!” He retraced his way slowly, lingering over each step that took him toward the things that belonged to the Company. The dark line heightened as he went, and when he reached the woods again he could see the shifting reflection of his fire. He came to the bough camp, wrapped himself in his blankets, and passed into the unconsciousness of sleep while the darkness hung on, then little by little gave way to the irresistible power of another sun.

This day Jules set forty traps, and in four days had twenty marten, nineteen sable, three fox (one gray), six wolverine, five lynx, and a beaver (that he killed on a neighbouring pond).

The fifth day he set out for the post again. A strong northerly storm was on, and the sleet dashed against him with dizzying strength as he slowly forced his way against it. He broke the trail, and the dogs followed on his heels, whining and shivering, their long hair clustered with white and their tails dragging heavily. The wind sang riotously in Jules’s ears, and their inner rims were covered with the blowing drift; the hair in his nose froze solid, and prickled as he breathed; and the gusts found their way inside the thick muffler and chilled his body. But he loved it, and fought his way steadily to Reliance.

A few trappers were in the open when Verbaux entered the yard, and they grunted surprisedly as they saw the tall, gaunt figure leading the team and sledge.

“’ave success?” asked one.

Jules nodded and went to his tepee, fed the dogs, gathered up his skins, and sought the factor.

“VoilÀ! Dat h’anough for you?” he asked.

“Aye, that’s guid!” the Scotchman answered, and counted the pelts. “That’s guid, mon,” he repeated, but Verbaux had gone out of the store.

Jules passed close to Le Pendu’s camp on the way to his own, and he stopped suddenly. Lying at one side were Le Pendu’s snow-shoes, and it was their remarkable and unpleasantly familiar shape that caught Jules’s attention; they were long and narrow, turning up at the toe and heel, with thin lacings.

“Ah rememb’ maintenant! Dat le track Ah see long ’go’ par dat femme mort prÈs de Lac la Pluie!” he muttered, and went on.

The winter days, weeks, and months rolled sluggishly by. Verbaux kept to his promise and worked faithfully and hard. To be sure, he got good pay for his skins from the factor, and this he saved carefully. He had brought his dogs to perfect form and they held the reputation of being the fastest team on the post. The Indians had grown to like Jules, while the voyageurs were outspoken in their admiration for his great skill in the forests, and for his wonderful sagacity and cunning in setting traps. His luck had been phenomenal up to the close of the season, and represented a good share of the entire take of the post. Le Pendu was always ugly, but Jules laughed in his face and snapped his fingers at him.

Five long months had passed since he had given his word to stay with Factor Donalds. The snows had all gone; in their place the spring gray-green of the barren tundra showed, suggestive of hot suns and warm skies. In the forests the undergrowth was thick, and bright, tender leaves appeared from day to day. The birches spread their budding limbs hungrily to the southern winds that came caressingly from warmer climes, and the winter masses shrivelled on their trunks and died. The ice had melted from the lakes and rivers, and their cold waters shone dancingly in the lengthening days. Snow-shoes were laid away, and in their stead graceful bark canoes lay daintily on the beach before the post at the lake edge. The dogs strolled lazily about, their work finished for some months. And still Jules remained. One night he pushed a canoe from the shore, and leaping in sent it flying over the calm waters with long, sweeping strokes of his paddle. Some distance out he ceased paddling and drifted. The darkness was warm, the night air laden with the odours of the fresh things of early summer; the still waters mirrored the tiny bright lamps of the heavens, and as he watched and lived in the silence of the waters a gleaming crescent lifted its horns above the trees and cast long, glancing rays across the lake. Jules was kneeling in the canoe, resting his hands on the paddle, that lay athwart the craft.

“La lune, by gar she mak’ bon signe!” he said aloud as he noted that both tips of the new moon pointed strongly upward. Higher and higher it rose; the shining dew on his tanned shirt shone gray and the little drops of moisture on his cap gleamed in the blue-white sheen. The light swirls of trout as they rose to the surface here and there broke the silence; from far beyond in the marshes came the solitary qu-a-a-ck of a duck; the hoarse croaking of a heron sounded faintly; then the dull, booming calls of the marsh bittern floated up out of a distant valley stream.

“Ah mus’ go to-mor’,” Verbaux decided as he listened to these sounds of the summer wilderness; the heartache to find Marie overpowered him. He paddled slowly back, dipping the blade lightly into the dark waters; the soft lap of the little wave at the bow of the canoe sounded like liquid music to his ears, and he sighed as it ceased and changed to the harsh, sandy grating of land. He lifted the light craft, carried it on shore and turned it over, then he went to the tepee and lay down to sleep. “For de las’ taime,” he promised himself as he felt nature’s unconsciousness approaching.

The hard patter of rain on the skins woke him, and he got up and looked out. The heavens were dark and lowering, and the rain poured in thin sheets from the low-hanging clouds; it coursed in streamlets from the roofs of the buildings and twisted its way out under the stockade, furrowing deeper as he watched it. The roar of the falling drops in the forest came to him murmuringly. A heavy fog spread across the big lake, motionless and thick; the air was tinged with warmth. Jules made his preparations to go: he tied up his blankets, putting his food, tea, and the clothes he had made between them. Then he ate a cold breakfast and went out in the wet to the factor’s house.

The Scotchman listened to Verbaux’s frank admission of his intended departure, then he laughed.

“Na, na, ye’ll no be gangin’ awhile yit. I want ye to bide and wait for the big brigade that’ll coom now damn soon,” he answered.

“Ah tak’ back ma promesse!” Jules said, shrugging his shoulders as he left; but the factor only laughed again incredulously.

Verbaux waited all day in his tepee; he called his dogs and caressed them for the last time. In the afternoon the rain ceased and only the drip, drip from the soaking roofs remained of the earlier splashing fall. The trappers and Indians were in their tepees, some asleep, others talking, their voices sounding muffled and dead in the damp air.

Jules listened; no one moved. He took up his meagre load, left the tepee, crossed the yard, and went out of the gate unnoticed. His team leader trotted up to him, and Verbaux patted the big shaggy head kindly. The dark mist rolled upon the bank and enshrouded the trees; Jules disappeared into it, and soon a light scratching sound was audible, then an instant’s gurgle of disturbed water. That slight sound was heard by a figure that appeared dimly on the bank. It listened, then ran back to the post and hurried to Jules’s tepee, glanced in, saw that it was stripped of everything, and rushed, calling loudly, to the Store.