The Big Otter Read online

  CHAPTER THREE.

  DEEPER DESOLATION.

  Eight months of winter! Those who have read and entered into the spiritof Arctic voyagers, may have some idea of what that means, but none savehe or she who has had experience of it can fully understand it.

  To us who dwelt at the little outpost in the Great Nor'-west, snow andice had become so familiar--such matter-of-course conditions ofexistence--that green fields and flowers were a mere reminiscence of theremote past. The scent of a rose was a faded memory--indeed the scentof anything belonging to the vegetable kingdom had not once saluted ournostrils during those eight months. Pure white became one of the chiefand most impressive facts of our existence in regard to colour, if wemay so call it--white, varying in tone, of course, to pearly grey.Cold, of varied intensity, was the chief modifier of our sensations.Happily light was also a potent factor in our experiences--bright,glowing sunshine and blue skies contrasted well with the white and grey,and helped to counteract the cold; while pure air invigorated our framesand cheered our spirits.

  "I tell you what, boys," said Lumley, one afternoon as he entered thehall with gun and snow-shoes on shoulder, and flung down a bag full ofptarmigan, "winter is drawing to a close at last. I felt my deerskincoat quite oppressive to-day; does any one know what the thermometerstood at this morning?"

  "Yes, it was twenty-two above zero," answered Spooner, who wasattempting to smoke a pipe beside the stove; "I went to register it justafter breakfast."

  "I thought so--only ten below freezing point; why, it feels quitesummery, and the snow has a softness that I have not noticed since lastautumn. I hope dinner will soon be ready, for I'm very sharp set. Why,Spooner, what are you making such faces for?"

  "Am I making faces?" said Spooner, blushing and trying to lookunconcerned.

  "Of course you are, a marmozette monkey with the toothache couldscarcely make worse."

  Spooner attempted to laugh, and I felt it difficult to refrain fromjoining him, for I knew well the cause of his faces. He was theyoungest of us three and exceedingly anxious to imitate Lumley, who wasunfortunately a great smoker; but Spooner, like myself, had been bornwith a dislike to smoke--especially tobacco smoke--and a liability tobecome sick when he indulged in the pipe. Hence, whilst foolishambition induced him to smoke, outraged nature protested; and betweenthe two the poor fellow had a bad time of it. He had a good deal ofdetermination about him, however, and persevered.

  The dinner-bell rang at the moment, and put an end to further badinage.

  Lumley was right. Spring was in truth at hand, and a host of newanticipations began from that day to crowd upon our minds.

  About the same time there came another break in the monotony of outpostlife which had, if possible, a more powerful and exciting influence onus than the arrival of the winter packet.

  Now at this point I must beg the reader's pardon for asking him to gowith me to a still more desolate and remote outpost than our own.Between one and two hundred miles nearer to the pole the little post ofMuskrat House lay under a beetling cliff, near the banks of an affluentof the great Saskatchewan river. It was in charge of Peter Macnab,before mentioned, who, in command of his army of six men and two women,held the post against all comers--the chief comers there being the NorthWind and Jack Frost.

  Poor Macnab was a jovial and sociable Scottish Highlander, who had beencondemned to worse than Siberian banishment because of being one of themost active, enterprising, and pushing fellows in the service of theFur-Traders. His ability to manage men and Indians, and to establishnew trading-posts, excelled that of his fellows. He regarded it as acomplimentary though trying circumstance when Mr Strang sent him toestablish the post which was named by him Muskrat House, but he facedthe duty--as he faced everything--like a man; did his best for hisemployers, and made the most of the situation.

  But it is not easy for even the strongest mind and lightest heart to bejovial when buried for eight months in snow more than twelve hundredmiles beyond the influences of civilised life; and it is hard to besociable with six uneducated men and two Indian women for one'scompanions. Macnab tried it, however, and was in a measure successful.He had his Bible with him--the one given him long ago by his mother--anda bound volume of Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, and three copies of the_Times_ newspaper nearly two years old, and a few numbers of an Americanpaper called the _Picayune_.

  With these materials he set to work--after each day's labour ofwater-drawing, firewood-cutting, and trapping was done--to educate hisarmy in religion, politics, political economy, and the variedramifications of social life. He had intelligent and grateful scholars.If they had not been so, Macnab would at all events have made themobedient pupils, for he was a physically large and powerful man--andmight was unavoidably right in those regions!

  Still, with all his energy and resources, the genial Highlander began,towards the end of winter, to feel an intense longing for a littleintercourse with his equals.

  Returning one night to the solitude of his little room, as was his wont,after a couple of hours' intercourse with his men in their own house, hesat down before his stove and addressed it thus:--

  "It won't last long, I fear. My brain is gradually turning intosomething like mashed potatoes, and my heart into a tinder-box, readyenough to catch fire, but with neither flint nor steel to light it! TheIndians won't be here for many weeks, and when they do come what goodcan I get from or do to them? Wow! wow! it's terribly slow work. Oh!Jessie, Jessie, my dear, what would I not give if I only had _you_here!"

  Lest the reader should suppose Macnab to be a love-sick swain, I mayremark here that Jessie was a sister whom he had left on the shores ofLoch Ness, and with whom he kept up a vigorous biennial correspondence.

  As the stove made no reply, he continued his address.

  "If I only had a few books now, it wouldn't be so hard to bear. To besure, the Bible is a great resource--a blessed resource; but you see Iwant something light now and then. A laugh, you know, seems to beabsolutely needful at times. Why, now I think of it, we wouldn't havebeen given the power to laugh if it hadn't been necessary, and the lasthearty laugh I had was, let me see--that time three months ago, when mylong-nosed interpreter mistook a dead mouse in the soup--ha! ha!--for abit of pemmican, and only found out his mistake when the tail gotbetween his teeth!"

  The solitary man burst into peals of laughter at the reminiscence, andthen, becoming suddenly grave, looked slowly round the room.

  "If I could only have an echo of that," he resumed, "from somebody else!Well, well, I'll just go and have another chat with Jessie."

  So saying, Macnab rose, drew a small table near to the stove, laid uponit a very large desk made by himself of pine-wood, and, placing a sheetof paper thereon, began to write.

  The sheet of paper merits notice. Like the man who wrote, it wasextremely large, being several sizes bigger than foolscap, and veryloosely ruled. As I have said, communication with the outer world beingpossible only twice in the year, our Highlander resolved, as usual, tomake the most of his opportunities. Hence he not only used the largestpaper which the company provided, but filled up several such sheets withthe smallest possible writing, so that Jessie might ultimately getsomething worth having. It is but justice to add that Macnab wrote notonly a very small but a remarkably clear and legible hand--a virtuewhich I earnestly commend to correspondents in general, to those of themat least who wish their epistles to meet with thorough appreciation.

  It was late when our solitaire completed that evening's addition to hisalready voluminous letter, and he was thinking about going to bed when astamping in the porch outside announced that a visitor was clearing thesnow from his moccasins.

  "One o' the men forgot something, I fancy," muttered Macnab to himself.

  The latch was lifted, for locks were not deemed necessary in thoseregions, and the door opening slowly disclosed the copper-hued visageand tall bony figure of a very powerful and handsome native of thesoil--perhaps I should rather sa
y--of the snow!

  "Hallo! hey! come in," shouted Macnab, giving way to a gush of hispent-up social feelings; "why it's good for sore eyes to see a new face,even a red one. What cheer? what cheer? Where d'ye hail from? Comein, come in, and welcome!"

  The hearty Highlander spoke the Indian tongue fluently, but in theexcitement of his feelings mingled it with a good deal of English and anoccasional growl of expressive Gaelic.

  The Indian, whose horned cap and person were well powdered with snow,stepped slowly over the threshold, extending his hand to theHighlander's grasp, and looking cautiously round with rolling blackeyes, as if he half expected a dynamite explosion to follow hisentrance. His garments bore evidence of rough usage. Holes in hismoccasins permitted portions of the duffle socks underneath to wanderout. Knots on his snow-shoe lines and netting told of a long roughjourney, and the soiled, greasy condition of his leathern capote spokeof its having been much used not only as a garment by day but as a shirtby night.

  Placing his gun and snow-shoes in a corner, after solemnly responding"watchee, watchee," to Macnab's "what cheer," the red-man seated himselfon the floor beside the stove, with silent disregard of the chair thathis host politely offered.

  It is the custom of North American Indians--on arriving at anestablishment--to withhold the most interesting portion of what they mayhave to communicate until after they have had a pipe, or a feed, andhave answered the questions put on the less interesting objects of theirvisits. Being well aware of this trait of character, Macnab forebore toquestion too closely this fine-looking Indian until he had well thawedand smoked himself. Ultimately, however, he brought him to the point.

  To the north-westward of Muskrat House, many long days' march, he said(of course in his native tongue) there was a grand country full of finefurs and fine people, who found it a very long journey indeed to comeall the way to Muskrat House to trade their furs. Would his whitefather go and build a house there, near Lake Wichikagan, and shoot andfish, and trade?--waugh!

  To which Macnab replied that he was glad to hear about the plenty offurs and the friendly natives and the fine country, and that he wouldtake the matter into his consideration--waugh!

  To this the red-man responded "ho!" and then "how!"--not interrogativelybut interjectionally--with much gravity.

  That night Macnab took the matter into consideration with his wontedvigour, and came to the conclusion that it was of sufficient importanceto warrant a visit on his part to headquarters--Dunregan beingheadquarters to Muskrat House. Accordingly, he went to the men's houseand introduced the stranger, whose name in the Indian tongue signifiedBig Otter. The men received him with as much joy as if he had been anangel of light.

  "Get a sled and four of the best dogs ready to start by daybreakto-morrow," said Macnab to one of his men, "and have breakfast sharp,"he added, turning to the cook. "You'll go with me to Dunregan, won'tyou, Big Otter?"

  Big Otter was ready for anything at a moment's notice!

  When daylight glimmered faintly in the east the following morning,Macnab sat at his table devouring venison steaks, pancakes, and tea.Big Otter sat opposite to him, having condescended to use a chair inorder to be on a level with the table. The chair gave him much anxiety,however. He evidently feared to fall off or upset it, for, on rising toreach some food opposite, he had tilted it back, and received atremendous though unacknowledged start from the crash that followed.

  Half an hour later, Macnab, having left his interpreter in charge of theestablishment, was beating the track on snow-shoes through the forest,his four wolfish-looking dogs following with a sled-load of provisionsand bedding, and Big Otter bringing up the rear.

  The day turned out to be bright calm, and frosty. It was in thoroughunison with Macnab's feelings, for the near prospect of soon meetingwith men somewhat like himself produced a calm and bright condition ofmind which he had not experienced for many a day. It is true that thefrost can scarcely be said to have represented the Highlander'stemperament; but if there be truth in the saying that extremes meet, itmay be admissible to say that intense cold, which had the effect ofexpanding water into ice so that it rent the very rocks, might beappropriately compared with that intense warmth of Macnab's feelingswhich had the effect of all but bursting his very bosom! There was nota breath of air stirring when the two men passed from the forest, andstruck out upon the marble surface of the great lake which lay at thedistance of about two miles from their establishment. The sun wasrising at the time on the horizon of the ocean-like lake, gloriouslybright and cheering, though with no appreciable warmth in its beams.Diamonds innumerable glittered on the frosted willow-boughs; the snowunder the travellers' tread gave forth that peculiar squeak, or chirpingsound, which is indicative of extreme Arctic frost, and the breath fromtheir mouths came out like the white puffs of a locomotive, settling ontheir breasts in thick hoar-frost, and silvering such of their locks asstraggled out beyond the margin of their caps. There was no life atfirst in the quiet scene, but, just as they passed through the lastclump of bushes on the margin of the lake, a battalion of ptarmigan,seemingly a thousand strong, burst with startling whirr from under theirvery feet, and skimmed away like a snow-cloud close to the ground, whilean Arctic fox, aroused from his lair by the noise, slank quietly offunder the false belief that he had not been seen.

  The rise of the ptarmigan had another effect, on which the travellershad not counted. The four wolfish dogs were so startled by the whirr,that their spirits were roused to the mischievous point. Up to thatmoment they had been toiling and panting through the soft snow in thewoods. They had now emerged upon the hard, wind-beaten snow of the openground and the lake. The sudden freedom in the action of their limbs,coupled with the impulse to their spirits, caused the team to boundforward with one accord. The sled swung round against Macnab's legs,and overturned him; and the tail-line was jerked out of Big Otter'sgrasp. In a vain effort to recover it, that solemn savage trod, withhis right, on his own left snow-shoe, and plunged into a willow bush.Thus freed altogether, the dogs went away with railway speed over thehard snow, ever urged to more and more frantic exertions by the wildboundings of the comparatively light sled behind them.

  "After them, lad!" shouted Macnab, as he cast off his snow-shoes andgave chase.

  The Indian followed suit in desperate haste, for his receptive mind atonce perceived the all but hopeless nature of a chase after fourlong-legged dogs, little removed from genuine wolves, over a hard levelcourse that extended away to the very horizon.

  Happily, there was a small island not far from the shore of the lake, onwhich grew a few willow bushes whose tops protruded above theoverwhelming snow, and whose buds formed the food of the ptarmiganbefore mentioned. Towards this island the dogs headed in their blindrace just as the white man and the red began to regret the comparativeslowness of human legs.

  "Good luck!" exclaimed Macnab.

  "Waugh!" responded his companion.

  There was ground for both remarks, for, a few minutes later, the dogsplunged into the bushes and the sled stuck fast and held them.

  This was a trifling incident in itself, but it shook out of thetravellers any remains of lethargy that might have clung to them fromthe slumbers of the previous night, and caused them to face the trampthat lay before them with energy.

  "Oh, you _ras_cals!" growled Macnab, as he went down on his knees besidethe leading dog to disentangle the traces which had been twisted up inthe abrupt stoppage.

  I know not whether those dogs, being intellectually as well asphysically powerful beyond their fellows, understood the uncomplimentaryterm and lost their tempers, but certain it is that the words were nosooner uttered than the hindmost dog made an unprovoked assault on thedog in front of it. Of course the latter defended itself. The dog nextto that, being probably pugnacious, could not resist the temptation tojoin in, and the leader, feeling no doubt that it was "better to be outof the world than out of the fashion," fell upon the rest withremarkable fury. Thus the sled, traces,
and dogs, instantly became atumultuous mass of yelling, gasping, heaving, and twisting confusion.

  Big Otter carried a short, heavy whip. Without uttering a word, hequietly proceeded to flog the mass into subjection. It was a difficultduty to perform, but Big Otter was strong and persevering. He prevailedafter some time. The mass was disentangled; the subdued dogs wenthumbly forward, and the journey, having been thus auspiciously begun,was continued until nightfall.

  They had left the lake and Muskrat House some thirty miles behind them,and had got into a thick and profoundly still part of the greatwilderness, when the waning light warned them to encamp.