With this incomprehensible bit of advice Mrs. Olsen opened the door, swiftly, and closed it just as fast. Madge saw her smiling at her through the window-pane. Stefan made her sit down on the pillow, over which he had laid the bearskin, which he then wrapped over her shoulders and body and limbs.

"Now ve starts right off," he told her. "Look out careful for your nose, leddy," he also advised before calling to his dogs, who strained away at the long traces and trotted away, pulling heartily.

Wearing a pair of huge snowshoes Stefan followed or kept at the side of the toboggan. They left the road and struck a sort of path that led them up a hill. To her right hand she could see a vast expanse of frozen lake stretching away to the north. In some places the snow appeared to be quite level while in others it was deeply wrinkled in ridges caused by the winds. Presently the trees grew more abundant along the way. They were silvery birches and the yellow ones, and poplars with slender branches ending in tiny bare twigs. The conifers still wore thick coats of dark green, excepting the tamaracks, that only carried a few long golden needles. These big trees were dotted over with great lumps of snow and ice which occasionally clattered down through the branches.

Madge looked up and the world seemed to a.s.sume a wondrous new beauty such as she had never known. The blue above was wonderfully clear and bright. Over the snow the sunlight was beating strongly, though it appeared to give little or no heat. Yet in the great patches of shadow through which they pa.s.sed at times it felt colder still.

"Yoost keep on feelin' yer nose," Stefan told her, as the dogs rested for a moment at the top of a small hill. "You mustn't let it get frost-bited, ma'am. It ain't such a awful big nose you got, leddy, but you sure vouldn't look so bretty if it drop off. Ha, ha!"

He laughed out loudly, apparently enjoying his ponderous joke greatly, but she felt that she must heed his advice and frequently carried the big mitt Mrs. Olsen had lent her to her face. They came to a great expanse of deep forest where, in places, the ground was nearly bare of snow. The pulling was hard here and the dogs toiled along more slowly and panted as their cloudy breaths rose in steamy puffs. Madge admired them. They seemed such strong, willing animals. When they rested for a moment they would lie down and bite off the little b.a.l.l.s of ice that formed beneath their toes, but at a word they would leap up again and throw themselves against their breast-bands, eagerly. In one difficult place Madge protested.

"The poor things are working so hard," she said. "Couldn't I get out and walk for a while? I don't feel tired at all now, but your poor dogs do, I'm sure."

"No, ma'am," replied Stefan. "They ain't tired. They yoost look so because they work hard. In dis country togs and men has to work hard or go hoongry. In a moment you sees how dey run again, vhen dey get good going. Dem togs can go dis vay all day and be fresh again to-morrow. Eferybody here knows vhat my team o' togs can do, ma'am."

It was evident that he was proud of them, and Madge decided that it was with good reason. They had started again and reached an expanse of burnt land, upon which the snow was crusted and the road was on a down grade. The team that had panted so hard, with lolling tongues, threw itself into the collars and trotted off again, briskly, while Stefan followed with the short-stepped and effortless flat-footed run that covers so much ground in the north. The girl had to balance herself rather carefully at times, for the surface was by no means a level one. The toboggan swayed and b.u.mped over hidden things that may have been stumps or rocks, or great buried ruts of the previous fall.

It was all so new and wonderful! A sense of enjoyment actually stole over her. But for the feeling of stiffness in her face she felt comfortably warm. Without ever meeting a soul, through a country that seemed utterly deserted of man, they went on for several miles. Once Stefan stopped the toboggan in order to show her tracks of a bear. It was wonderful to think that such animals roamed about her. The Swede told her that they were utterly harmless, that they always fled as soon as their keen eyes or sharp ears revealed the neighborhood of their enemies, the men who coveted their thick and long-haired hides worth a good many dollars. But she saw few living things; once there was a great snowy owl that rose heavily and then flew swiftly and in silence from a stump in a _brule_, disappearing among the trees like an animated shadow, yes, a shadow of sudden death to hares and partridges cowering beneath the fronds of wide-spreading conifers or in the great tangles of frost-killed long gra.s.ses.

It was altogether another world, strange and of rugged beauty. She felt as if she had been transported from the seething city into the vast peace of some landscape of moon or stars. Every bit of the old harsh world was now left behind and there was no longer any hint of cruelty in the snowy plains and hills and forest; nothing reminded her of despairing hunger, of the disbelief that had stolen upon her in the possibility of eking out much longer a life that was too hard to sustain. What if her errand seemed fantastic, unreal, since this new world also was like some illusion of a dream? The great stillness appeared to be friendly--the bent tops of snow-laden trees surely bowed a welcome to her--the shining sun and the pure air, in spite of bitter cold, drove the blood more rapidly through her veins and she no longer deemed life to be a mere form of suffering, such as she had undergone during the last year of her losing contest in the cruel, pitiless town.

Suddenly, as Stefan trudged behind in a narrow part of the old tote-road, a big white hare crossed the path ahead of the dogs, perhaps seeking to escape the pursuit of some marten or weasel. At once the team broke into a headlong gallop, a helter-skelter pursuit, while their master roared at them unavailingly. Down a small declivity they flew. A moment later one side of the toboggan rose suddenly and the pa.s.senger felt herself being shot off into the snow. As the sled upset the little trunk lashed to its back caught into something and firmly anch.o.r.ed the whole contrivance, a few yards further on, and perforce the animals stopped with hanging tongues and steaming breaths.

An instant later Stefan was helping Madge arise. He looked at her in deep concern.

"Dem tamn togs!" he roared. "I hope you ain't hurted none, leddy?"

With his a.s.sistance she rose quickly from the snow. It is possible that she had scarcely had time enough to become afraid. At any rate this new life that had come to her a.s.serted itself, irresistibly, for there was something in its essence that would not be denied. In the heart that had been overburdened something broke, like a flood bursting its bonds. She threw up her head and uplifted her hands as laughter, pealing and rippling unrestrained, shook her slender frame from head to foot until tears ran down the now reddened cheeks and turned to tiny globes of ice. She was making up for weeks and months of sombre thoughts, of despair, of shrewd suffering.

"Tank gootness!" roared Stefan. "First I tink dem togs yoost kill you dead. If so I take de pelts off 'em all alife, de scoundrels!"

"Oh! Please don't punish them," she cried. "It--it was so funny! Oh, dear! I--I must stop laughing! It--it hurts my sides!"

She ran off among the dogs and threw herself down on the crusted snow, pa.s.sing one arm over a s.h.a.ggy back. The animal looked at her, uncertainly, but suddenly he pa.s.sed a big moist tongue over her face.

Could he have realized that her saving grace might avert condign punishment? The girl petted him as Stefan turned the toboggan and its load right side up.

"You ain't feared of dem togs," he called to her. "And you vasn't afraid vhen dey dump you out. You's a blucky gal all right, leddy!"

A moment later she was again wrapped up in the bearskin and the dogs, loudly threatened but unpunished, owing to her intercession, resumed their journey. They had gone but a few hundred yards further when Madge smelled wood-smoke. A few minutes later they came in sight of a low-built shack of heavy planks evidently turned out in a sawpit and resting on walls of peeled spruce logs. The dogs trotted toward it and a woman came out as Stefan stopped his team.

"I got a letter for you, Mis' Carew," he announced. "I got it dis morning at de post-office and bring it as I come along dis vay."

He searched a pocket of his coat while the woman looked at Madge curiously.

"Won't you come in and warm yourself a while?" she asked, civilly. "I can make you a hot cup of tea in a minute."

"Thank you! Thank you ever so much," answered Madge. "I--I think we'd better hurry on."

Stefan had found the letter and handed it to Mrs. Carew.

"Wait a moment, Stefan, won't you?" asked the woman. "There might possibly be some message you could take for me."

The man lit his pipe while the woman went indoors. A moment later she came out, excitedly.

"Oh! Stefan," she cried. "I'm so glad you came. My man's away with the dogs, gone after a load of moose-meat, and won't be back till to-morrow. And my daughter Mary's very sick at Missanaibie and wants me to come right over. Could you take me over to the depot in time for the afternoon train west? Are you going back to-day?"

Stefan pulled out a big silver watch and studied it.

"Yes, ma'am," he answered. "I'm yoost goin' over to Hugo's wid dis leddy. If I go real smart I can get back in time, but I got to hurry a bit. So long! I come right soon back. Leave a vord for Tom und be ready de moment I come. I make it, sure!"

With this a.s.surance he started off again, while the woman was still crying out her thanks. There was a long bit of good going now, which they covered at a good pace. Madge was thinking how helpful all these people were, how naturally they gave, how readily they asked for the help that was always welcome, as far as she could see. Yes, it was all so very different.

"Won't the dogs be dreadfully tired," she asked, "if you go back so soon?"

"No, leddy," he a.s.serted. "Twenty-four miles ain't much of a trip. Dey make tvice dat if need come. And me too, sure t'ing!"

As she looked at him she knew that he spoke the simple truth. Even the people of this country seemed to be built differently. All of them looked st.u.r.dy, self-reliant, strong to endure, and, more than anything, ready to share everything either with stranger or with friend. In spite of the weariness she felt after her long journey and of the ache in her bones that was coming from the unusual manner of her travelling, she felt that this was a blessed country, a haven of rest that held promise of wonderful peace. All at once they came in sight of a river, snow-shackled like all the others, except for black patches where the under-running flood so hurried in rapid places that the surface could not freeze. From such air-holes, as they are called, steam arose that was like the smoke of fires.

"What is that river?" she called.

"Dat's de Roaring Rifer, leddy," Stefan informed her. "Ve's only a little vays to go now. Maybe five minute."

At this moment, as in a flash, all of her vague and carking fears returned to the girl, and her hand went to her breast. It was only a little way now! And it was no dream--no figment of her imagination!

The beginning of the real adventure was at hand! Truth flashed upon her. In a few moments she would see for the first time the man she was to marry. She blushed fiery red. Instinctively she looked about her, like some wild thing vainly seeking for a way to escape impending peril. What would he be like? What would he think of her? Oh! She now knew that it had all been a frightful mistake! Her limbs shook with a sudden bitter coldness that had fallen upon her like one of the ma.s.ses that became displaced from the great trees, and she could not keep her teeth from chattering. Then, in her ears, began to boom a strong continuous sound that was ominous, threatening.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Truth flashed upon her! In a few moments she would see for the first time the man she was to marry]

"What's that?" she stammered, trembling.

"Dat's de noise of dem big Falls of Roaring River," answered Stefan.

An instant later, Madge never knew why, the dogs were snarling in a fight. In a moment Stefan was among them, wielding his short-handled and long-lashed whip. A trace was broken. By the time the damage was repaired and the dogs pacified some ten minutes or more had been wasted. The man looked at his watch.

"I ain't got so much time left," he said. "I got to hurry back for Mis' Carew. Lucky ve're most dere now."

A few seconds after they had started again they came to an opening, towards which Stefan pointed, and the girl's heart sank within her.

She saw nothing of the distant falls surrounded by a growth in which every twig scintillated with the frost lavished by the river's vapor.

She never noticed the great circular pool with its deep banks, or the wonderful view, far across country, of mountains washed in pale blues and lavenders, of the sun-flooded bright expanse of open ground, partly fenced in with axe-hewn rails. She could only stare at a little shack, the smallest she had seen in that country, and at the thread of smoke coming from the length of stove-pipe protruding from the ice-covered roof, and to her it looked like the home of misery.

A few yards farther on the team stopped. From here the hut could only be faintly distinguished through a growth of birches and firs.

"You can get off de toboggan now, leddy," Stefan told her. "I puts off your trunk too. Hugo he come and get it. I call to him."

She rose to her feet, speechless, amazed, with fear causing a terrible throbbing in her throat. She would have protested but could not find her voice. As soon as Stefan had unlashed the trunk and put it down on the frozen ground he turned his team around.

"Oh! Hugo!" he bellowed. "Oh! Hugo! Here's de leddy."

For an instant there was no reply, but while Stefan yelled again she saw, through a small opening in the interlaced branches, that the door opened. A huge dog came out and rolled in the snow, barking. The man waved a hand.