When he had reached his shack by the Roaring River he had entered it and lighted the small lamp. It chanced to be the last match in his pocket that he used for the purpose. There was no need to open the big package that stood on a shelf, since he remembered having left two or three small boxes in his hunting bag. He went over to the corner where he had left it and bent over, somewhat painfully. As he lifted it from the floor he saw an envelope and picked it up. It was addressed to him. Tearing it open he stared at the words "Starting this evening.

Please have some one meet me. Madge Nelson."

With clenched fist he struck the table a blow that startled Maigan, who barked, leaping up to his feet.

"It's all right, boy," said his master. "Men are pretty big fools, excepting when they're nothing but infernal cowards. I tell you, boy, some one will have to pay heavily for this. Good Lord! Who would have thought of such a thing? I--I think I must be getting crazy! But no--she's over there at Papineau's, and some one wrote to her, and everything she said was the plain truth, as she understood it. Great Heavens! It's no wonder she looked at me as if I'd been the dirt under her feet. That thing's got to be straightened out, somehow, but first I must see Stefan, of course."

For a moment a wild idea came to him of going over to Carcajou in the darkness. Such an undertaking was by no means particularly difficult for a strong man, who knew the way, but suddenly he realized that he was played out and would never reach his destination that night. This irked his soul, unbearably, until he had recourse to his old briar pipe. In spite of the fact that his arm was beginning to hurt him badly he sat near the stove, where he had kindled a fire again, thinking hard. He was racking his brain to seek some motive that could have impelled any one he knew to play such a frightful joke. One after another he named every man he had ever known or even merely met in Carcajou and the surrounding, spa.r.s.ely settled country. But they were nearly all friends of his, he knew, or at least had no reason to bear him ill-will. There was one chap he had had quite a sc.r.a.p with one day, over a dog-fight in which the man had urged his animal first and then kicked Maigan when he saw his brute having by far the worst of it. But soon afterwards they had shaken hands and the matter had been forgotten. Besides, the fellow was now working in Sudbury, far east down the line. No, that wasn't a trail worth following. The more he thought the matter over the more utterly mysterious it seemed to become. But of one thing he was determined. He was going to move heaven and earth to get at the bottom of all this, and when he found out who was responsible the fur would fly.

It was perhaps fortunate for her that the idea of the red-headed girl in old McGurn's store never entered his head for a moment. She had always been friendly, perhaps even a little forward in her attentions to him, though he had always paid her rather scant notice. He had never been more than decently civil to her.

When he sought his bunk, an hour or two later, a long time elapsed before he could fall asleep. It seemed to him that his head throbbed a good deal, and that shoulder was growing mightily uncomfortable. He hoped it would be better in the morning. Finally he fell asleep, restlessly. Upon the floor, stretched out upon an old deerskin close to the stove, Maigan was sleeping more profoundly, though now and then he whined and sighed in his slumber, perhaps dreaming of hares and porcupines. A cricket ensconced beneath the flat stones under the stove began to chirp, shrilly. Outside a big-horned owl was hooting, dismally, while the big falls continued to roar out their eternal song. And thus the long night wore out till a flaming crimson and copper dawn came up, with flashing rays that stabbed the great rolling clouds while the trees kept on cracking in the intense frost and the ice in the big pool churned and groaned under the torment of waters seeking to burst their shackles.

CHAPTER VII

Carcajou Is Shocked

After Stefan had started away with Madge, Miss Sophy McGurn, who had been on the watch, was delighted to see Mrs. Olsen coming to the store. She greeted her customer more pleasantly than ever and served her with a bag of beans, two spools of black thread and a pound of the best oleo-b.u.t.ter. The older woman was nothing loath to talk, and confirmed the girl's suspicion that Stefan had taken that young woman to Hugo's. Mrs. Olsen insisted on the fact that her visitor was a real pretty girl, though awfully thin and looking as if a breath would blow her over. She also commented on the lack of suitable clothing for such dreadful weather, and on the utter ignorance Madge seemed to display of anything connected with Carcajou or, in fact, any part of Ontario.

When questioned, cautiously, she admitted that she knew no reason whatever for the girl's coming, but she hastened to a.s.sert that Stefan had said it was all right, which settled the question, and, with her rather waddling gait, started off for her house again.

As soon as Stefan returned Sophy saw that he still had a woman on his toboggan. She hurried to meet him and was grievously disappointed when she found out it was Mrs. Carew. But she boldly went up to Stefan.

"h.e.l.lo! Stefan!" she said. "Where did you leave your pa.s.senger of this morning?"

"h.e.l.lo! Sophy!" he answered, placidly. "I leaf de yong leddy vhere she ban going, I tank."

"She isn't coming back to-night?"

"Mebbe yes, mebbe no," he answered, grabbing Mrs. Carew's bag and hurrying with her into the station, for the engine's whistle announced that he had made the journey with little or no time to spare.

Sophy made her way back to the store, meeting Mrs. Kilrea on her way.

To this lady she confided that a young woman had gone up to Hugo Ennis' shack and had not returned. Wasn't it queer? And Mrs. Olsen had said that she wasn't Hugo's wife or sister. Wasn't it funny? But of course she supposed it was all right.

Mrs. Kilrea called on old Mrs. Follansbee, who told Mrs. McIntosh.

This lady was a Cree Indian that had become more or less civilized.

The white women would speak to her on account of her husband Aleck, who was really a very nice man. At any rate all the ladies of Carcajou were soon aware of the unusual happening, scenting strange news and perhaps even a bit of scandal.

Big Stefan, having urged his team to their utmost, now fed them carefully and locked them up in his shed, a local habit providing against b.l.o.o.d.y fights that were objected to not so much on moral principle as because these contests often resulted in the disabling of valuable animals. It also prevented incursions among the few sheep of the neighborhood or long hunts in which dogs indulged by themselves, returning with sore feet and utterly unable to move for a day or two.

The animals, before falling asleep, were biting off the crackling icicles that had formed in the hair growing between their padded toes.

The journey had not exhausted them in the slightest and on the morrow they would be perfectly fit for further travel, if need be.

Neither was Stefan weary. After supper he quietly strolled over to the store where some of Carcajou's choicest spirits were gathered, since the village boasted no saloon. Here the news was discussed, as spread out by the few who got a daily or weekly paper from Ottawa or Sudbury, or gathered in the immediate neighborhood by the local gossips.

"h.e.l.lo, Stefan!" exclaimed Miles Parker, who was supposed to watch over the sawmill and see that the machinery didn't suffer too much during the long period of disuse. "How did ye find the travelin'

to-day? See ye didn't manage ter freeze them whiskers off'n yer face, did ye?"

"Dey're yoost vhere dey belongs, I tank," answered Stefan, quietly.

"Miss Sophy, if you haf time I take two plugs Lumberman's Joy terbacker."

"Stefan he's so all-fired big he got to keep a chew on each side of his face," explained Pat Kilrea, a first-rate mechanic who was then busy with the construction of a little steamer that was to help tow down to the mill some big booms of logs, as soon as the lake opened.

"He ain't able to get no satisfaction except from double action."

At this specimen of local wit and humor the others grinned but Stefan remained quite unmoved. Miss Sophy waited on him, scanning his face, eager to ask more questions, while she feared to say a word. It may have been her conscience which made her uneasy. Of course she believed that the precautions she had taken rendered it impossible for any one to accuse her, or at any rate to prove anything. Still, a certain anxiety remained, which she was unable to restrain. She would have given a good deal to know what had taken place. Never had she doubted that the scene would occur right there at the station in Carcajou.

That telegram had badly upset her plans, apparently. And then it was queer that Hugo had not come down after receiving it, if only to try to find out what it meant. Finally, one of the men, having none of her reasons for keeping still, came forth with a direct question.

"I reckon you got out to Roarin' Falls all safe with that there pooty gal, didn't ye?" he asked.

It was Joe Follansbee who had sought this information, being only too eager to hint at something wrong on the part of a man he had long deemed a rival. At his words, however, Sophy sniffed and turned up her nose.

"I didn't see anything very pretty about her," she said.

"Well, I didn't see as how she was so real awful pretty," Joe hastened to observe. "She ain't the style I admire, by no manner of means."

This strategic withdrawal was destined to meet with entire failure, however. Sophy turned to the boxes of plug that were stored on the shelves and pretended to busy herself with their order and symmetry.

But she was again listening, eagerly.

"What d'ye say, Stefan?" joined Pat Kilrea. "How'd she stand the trip?

Did ye see if her nose was still on her face when ye got there?"

"I tank so," opened Stefan, gravely, "but it wouldn't matter so much vith de leddy. Maybe she ain't so much use for it like you haf for yours, to stick into oder people's pusinesses."

Stefan continued to shave off curly bits from his plug, while the laughter turned against the engineer. Carcajou, like a good many other places, commonly favored the top-dog when it came to betting. The answering grin in Pat's face was a rather sour one. If any other man had spoken to him thus there might have been a lively fight, but no one in Carcajou, and a good many miles around it, cared to engage in fisticuffs with the Swede. A story was current of how he had once manhandled four drunken lumberjacks, in spite of peavies and sticks of cordwood.

"Well, you're getting to be a good deal of a lady's man, Stefan," said Aleck McIntosh, a fellow who was supposed to be a scion of Scottish n.o.bility receiving remittances from his country. The most evident part of his income, however, appeared to be contributed by his Cree wife, who took in the little washing Carcajou indulged in and made the finest moccasins in Ontario. "Going off with one and coming back with another. I dare say you prefer carrying females to lugging the mails around."

"Mebbe I likes it better but it's more hard on dem togs," a.s.serted Stefan, judicially.

"And--and ye left her at Hugo's shack, did ye?" ventured Pat again, whereat Stefan nodded in a.s.sent and lighted his pipe.

"Did she say she was anyways related to him? His sister or something like that?" persisted the engineer.

"Well, I tank she say somethin' about bein' his grandmother," retorted Stefan, "but I can tell you something, Pat. If you vant so much know all about it vhy you not put on your snowshoes an' tak' a run down there. It ban a real nice little valk."

As Pat Kilrea suffered from the handicap of having been born with a club-foot, which didn't prevent him from being an excellent man with machinery but made walking rather burdensome for him, the others guffawed again while the Swede opened the door and walked off, the crusted snow crackling under his big feet.

"In course it's none of my business, like enough," said Pat, virtuously, as he scratched a match on his trousers' leg, "but such goings on don't seem right, nohow. 'Tain't right an' proper, because it gives a bad example. I've knowed folks rid on a rail or even tarred and feathered for the like of that."

Carcajou's sterling sense of propriety, as represented by half a dozen male gossips, immediately agreed with him. The matter, they decided, should be looked into.

"And--and what d'ye think about it, Miss Sophy?" asked Joe, desirous of opening conversation again with the young woman and redeeming himself.

"Things like that is beneath me to talk about," she a.s.serted, coldly.

"And what's more, I don't care to hear about 'em. It--it's time ye got back to the depot, Joe Follansbee and I'm goin' to close up anyways and give ye all a chance to burn your own oil."

At this delicate invitation to vacate the premises the men rose and trooped out. Once outside, however, they felt compelled in spite of the bitter cold to comment a little further on the situation.