The girl looked at him startled. This was a new thought.

Musq'oosis, having made his point, relaxed his stern port. "To-morrow if the sun shine we cross the lake," he said amiably. "While we paddle I tell you many more things. We pa.s.s by Nine-Mile Point lak we goin'

somewhere else. Not let on we thinkin' of them at all. They will call us ash.o.r.e, and we stay jus' little while. You mus' look at them at all. You do everyt'ing I say, I get you good 'osban'."

"Bishop Lajeunesse coming up the river soon," suggested Bela. "Will you get me 'osban' for him marry? I lak marry by Bishop Lajeunesse."

"Foolish woman!" repeated Musq'oosis. "How do I know? A great work takes time!"

Bela pouted.

Musq'oosis rose stiffly to his feet. "I give you somesing," he said.

Shuffling inside the teepee, he presently reappeared with a little bundle wrapped in folds of dressed moose hide. Sitting calm he undid it deliberately. A pearl-handled revolver was revealed to Bela's eager eyes.

"The white man's short gun," he said. "Your fat'er gave it long tam ago. I keep her ver' careful. Still shoot straight. Here are sh.e.l.ls, too. Tak' it, and keep her clean. Keep it inside your dress. Good thing for girl to have."

Bela's instinct was to run away to examine her prize in secret. As she rose the old man pointed a portentous finger.

"Remember what I tell you! You got mak' yourself hard to get."

During the rest of the day Bela was un.o.btrusively busy with her preparations for the journey. Like any girl, red or white, she had her little store of finery to draw on. Charley did not show himself in the tepee.

Her mother, seeing what she was about, watched her with tragic eyes and closed mouth. At evening, without a word, she handed her a little bag of bread and meat. Bela took it in an embarra.s.sed silence. The whole blood of the two women cried for endearments that their red training forbade them.

More than once during the night Bela arose to look at the weather. It was with satisfaction that she heard the pine-trees complaining. In the morning the white horses would be leaping on the lake outside.

She had no intention of taking Musq'oosis with her. She respected the old man's advice, and meant to apply it, but an imperious instinct told her this was her own affair that she could best manage for herself. In such weather the old man would never follow her. For herself, she feared no wind that blew.

At dawn she stole out of the teepee without arousing anybody, and set forth down the river in her dugout alone.

CHAPTER III

AT NINE-MILE POINT

The camp at Nine-Mile Point was suffering from an attack of nerves. A party of strong men, suddenly condemned in the heat of their labours to complete inaction, had become a burden to themselves and to each other.

Being new to the silent North, they had yet to learn the virtue of filling the long days with small, self-imposed tasks. They had no resources, excepting a couple of dog-eared magazines--of which they knew every word by heart, even to the advertis.e.m.e.nts--and a pack of cards. There was no zest in the cards, because all their cash had been put into a common fund at the start of the expedition, and they had nothing to wager.

It was ten o'clock at night, and they were loafing indoors. Above the high tops of the pines the sky was still bright, but it was night in the cabin. They were lighted by the fire and by a stable lamp on the table. They had gradually fallen into the habit of lying abed late, and consequently they could not sleep before midnight. These evening hours were the hardest of all to put in.

Big Jack Skinner, the oldest and most philosophic of the party--a lean, sandy-haired giant--sat in a rocking chair he had contrived from a barrel and stared into the fire with a sullen composure.

Husky Marr and Black Shand Fraser were playing pinocle at the table, bickering over the game like a pair of ill-conditioned schoolboys.

On the bed sprawled young Joe Hagland, listlessly turning the pages of the exhausted magazine. The only contented figure was that of Sam Gladding, the cook, a boyish figure sleeping peacefully on the floor in the corner. He had to get up early.

It was a typical Northern interior: log walls with caked mud in the interstices, a floor of split poles, and roof of poles thatched with sods. Extensive repairs had been required to make it habitable.

The door was in the south wall, and you had to walk around the house to reach the lake sh.o.r.e. There was a little crooked window beside it, and another in the easterly wall. Opposite the door was a great fire-place made out of the round stones from the lake sh.o.r.e.

Of furniture, besides Jack's chair, there was only what they had found in the shack, a rough, home-made bed and a table. Two shared the bed, and the rest lay on the floor. They had some boxes for seats.

Something more than discontent ailed the four waking men. Deep in each pair of guarded eyes lurked a strange uneasiness. They were p.r.o.ne to start at mournful, unexpected sounds from the pine-tops, and to glance apprehensively toward the darker corners. Each man was carefully hiding these evidences of perturbation from his mates.

The game of pinocle was frequently halted for recriminations.

"You never give me credit for my royal," said Shand.

"I did."

"You didn't."

Husky s.n.a.t.c.hed up the pencil in a pa.s.sion. "h.e.l.l, I'll give it to you again!" he cried.

"That's a poor bluff!" sneered Shand.

Big Jack suddenly bestirred himself. "For G.o.d's sake, cut it out!" he snarled. "You hurt my ears! What in Sam Hill's the use of sc.r.a.pping over a game for fun?"

"That's what I say," said Shand. "A man that'll cheat for nothing ain't worth the powder and shot to blow him to h.e.l.l!"

"Ah-h! What's the matter with you?" retorted Husky. "I only made a mistake scoring. Anybody's liable to make a mistake. If it was a real game I'd be more careful like."

"You're dead right you would," said Black Shand grimly. "You'd get daylight let through you for less."

"Well, you wouldn't do it!" snarled Husky.

Shand rose. "Go on and play by yourself," he snarled disgustedly.

"Solitaire is more your style. Idiot's delight. If you catch yourself cheating yourself, you can shoot yourself for what I care!"

"Well, I can have a peaceful game, anyhow," Husky called after him, smiling complacently at getting the last word.

He forthwith dealt the cards for solitaire. Husky was a burly, red-faced, red-haired ex-brakeman, of a simple and conceited character. He was much given to childish stratagems, and was subject to fits of childish pa.s.sion. He possessed enormous physical strength without much staying power.

Black Shand carried his box to the fire and sat scowling into the flames. He was of a saturnine nature, in whom anger burned slow and deep. He was a man of few words. Half a head shorter than big Jack, he showed a greater breadth of shoulders. His arms hung down like an ape's.

"How far did you walk up the sh.o.r.e to-day?" big Jack asked.

"Matter of two miles."

"How's the ice melting?"

"Slow. It'll be a week before we can move on." Jack swore under his breath. "And this the 22nd of May!" he cried. "We ought to have been on our land by now and ploughing. We're like to lose the whole season.

"Ill luck has dogged us from the start," Jack went on. "Our calculations were all right. We started the right time. Any ordinary year we could have gone right through on the ice. But from the very day we left the landing we were in trouble. When we wasn't broke down we was looking for lost horses. When we wasn't held up by a blizzard we was half drowned in a thaw!