All day Sunday and Monday the storm blew with unabated fury and the three were held close prisoners in the tilt. On Monday night it cleared, and Tuesday morning came clear and rasping cold.

Long before daylight breakfast was eaten and preparations made for travelling. Bob lashed his tent, cooking utensils, some traps and a supply of provisions upon one of two toboggans that leaned against the tilt outside. The other one was for Bill when he should need it. d.i.c.k did up his blanket and a few provisions into a light pack, new slings were adjusted to their snow-shoes and finally they were ready to strike the trails.

The steel-gray dawn was just showing when d.i.c.k shouldered his pack, took his axe and gun and shook hands with the boys.

"Good-bye Bob. Have a care o' nasty weather an' don't be losin'

yourself. I'll see you in a fortnight, Bill. Good-bye."

With long strides he turned down the river bend and in a few moments the immeasurable white wilderness had swallowed him up.

The Big Hill trail was so called from a high, barren hill around whose base it swung to follow a series of lakes leading to the northwest. Of course as Bob had never been over the trail he did not know its course, or where to find the traps that Douglas had left hanging in the trees or lying on rocks the previous spring at the end of the hunting season. Bill was to go with him to the farthest tilt on this first journey to point these out to him and show him the way, then leave him and hurry back to his own path, while Bob set the traps and worked his way back to the junction tilt.

Shortly after d.i.c.k left them they started, Bill going ahead and breaking the trail with his snow-shoes while Bob behind hauled the loaded toboggan. On they pushed through trees heavily laden with snow, out upon wide, frozen marshes, skirting lakes deep hidden beneath the ice and snow which covered them like a great white blanket. The only halts were for a moment now and again to note the location of traps as they pa.s.sed, which Bob with his keen memory of the woods could easily find again when he returned to set them. Once they came upon some ptarmigans, white as the snow upon which they stood. Their "grub bag"

received several of the birds, which were very tame and easily shot. A hurried march brought them to the first tilt at noon, where they had dinner, and that night, shortly after dark, they reached the second tilt, thirty miles from their starting point. At midday on Thursday they came to the end of the trail.

When they had had dinner of fried ptarmigan and tea, Bill announced: "I'll be leavin' ye now, Bob. In two weeks from Friday we'll be meetin' in th' river tilt."

"All right, an' I'll be there."

"An' don't be gettin' lonesome, now I leaves un."

"I'll be no gettin' lonesome. There be some traps t' mend before I starts back an' a chance bit o' other work as'll keep me busy."

Then Bill turned down the trail, and Bob for the first time in his life was quite alone in the heart of the great wilderness.

VII

A STREAK OF GOOD LUCK

When Bill was gone Bob went to work at once getting some traps that were hanging in the tilt in good working order. He set them and sprang them one after another, testing every one critically. They were practically all new ones, and Douglas, after his careful, painstaking manner, had left them in thorough repair. These were some additional traps that no place had been found for on the trail. There were only about twenty of them and Bob decided that he would set them along the sh.o.r.es of a lake beyond the tilt, where there were none, and look after them on the Sat.u.r.day mornings that he would be lying up there.

The next morning he put them on his toboggan, and shouldering his gun he started out.

Not far away he saw the first marten track in the edge of the spruce woods near the lake. Farther on there were more. This was very satisfactory indeed, and he observed to himself,

"The's a wonderful lot o' footin', and 'tis sure a' fine place for martens."

He went to work at once, and one after another the traps were set, some of them in a little circular enclosure made by sticking spruce boughs in the snow, to which a narrow entrance was left, and in this entrance the trap placed and carefully concealed under loose snow and the chain fastened to a near-by sapling. In the centre of each of the enclosures a bit of fresh partridge was placed for bait, to reach which the animal would have to pa.s.s over the trap. Where a tree of sufficient size was found in a promising place he chopped it down, a few feet above the snow, cut a notch in the top, and placed the trap in the notch, and arranged the bait over it in such a way that the animal climbing the stump would be compelled to stand upon the trap to secure the meat.

All the marten traps were soon set, but there still remained two fox traps. These he took to a marsh some distance beyond the lake, as the most likely place for foxes to be, for while the marten stays amongst the trees, the fox prefers marshes or barrens. Here, in a place where the snow was hard, he carefully cut out a cube, making a hole deep enough for the trap to set below the surface. A square covering of crust was trimmed thin with his sheath knife, and fitted over the trap in such a way as to completely conceal it. The chain was fastened to a stump and also carefully concealed. Then over and around the trap pieces of ptarmigan were scattered. This he knew was not good fox bait, but it was the best he had.

"Now if I were only havin' a bit o' scent 'twould help me," he commented as he surveyed his work.

Foxes prefer meat or fish that is tainted and smells bad, and the more decomposed it is, the better it suits them. Bob had no tainted meat now, so he used what he had, in the hope that it might prove effective. A few drops of perfumery, or "scent," as he called it, would have made the fresh meat that he used more attractive to the animals, but unfortunately he had none of that either.

As he left the marsh and crossed from a neck of woods to the lake sh.o.r.e he saw two moving objects far out upon the ice. He dropped behind a clump of bushes. They were caribou.

His gun would not reach them at that distance, and he picked up a dried stick and broke it. They heard the noise and looked towards him. He stood up, exposing himself for the fraction of a second, then concealed himself behind the bushes again. Caribou are very inquisitive animals, and these walked towards him, for they wanted to ascertain what the strange object was that they had seen. When they had come within easy range he selected the smaller one, a young buck, aimed carefully at a spot behind the shoulders, and fired. The animal fell and its mate stood stupidly still and looked at it, and then advanced and smelled of it. Even the report of the gun had not satisfied its curiosity.

It would have been an easy matter for Bob to shoot this second caribou, but the one he had killed was quite sufficient for his needs, and to kill the other would have been ruthless slaughter, little short of murder, and something that Bob, who was a true sportsman, would not stoop to. He therefore stepped out from his cover and revealed himself. Then when the animal saw him clearly, a living enemy, it turned and fled.

Bob removed the skin and quartered the carca.s.s. These he loaded upon his toboggan and hauled to his tilt. The meat was suspended from the limb of a tree outside, where animals could not reach it and where it would freeze and keep sweet until needed. A small piece was taken into the tilt for immediate use, and some portions of the neck placed in the corner of the tilt where they would decompose somewhat and thus be rendered into desirable fox bait. The skin was stretched against the logs of the side of the shack farthest from the stove, to dry. This would make an excellent cover for Bob's couch and be warm and comfortable to sleep upon. The sinew, taken from the back of the animal, was sc.r.a.ped and hung from the roof to season, for he would need it later to use as thread with which to repair moccasins.

Now there was little to do for two or three days, and Bob began for the first time to understand the true loneliness of his new life. The wilderness was working its mysterious influence upon him. It seemed a long, long while since Bill had left him, and he recalled his last Sunday at Wolf Bight as one recalls an event years after it has happened. Sometimes he longed pa.s.sionately for home and human companionship. At other times he was quite content with his day to day existence, and almost forgot that the world contained any one else.

Early the next week he visited the traps. In one he found a Canada jay that had tried to filch the bait. In another a big white rabbit which had been caught while nibbling the young tops of the spruce boughs with which the trap was enclosed. A single marten rewarded him. The pelt was not prime, as it was yet early in the season, but still it was fairly good and Bob was delighted with it.

The fox traps had not been disturbed, but a fox had been feeding upon the caribou head and entrails, where they had been left upon the ice, and one of the traps was taken up and reset here. The others he also put in order, and returned to the tilt with the rabbit and marten. The former, boiled with small bits of pork, made a splendid stew, and the skin was hung to dry, for, with others it could be fashioned into warm, light slippers to wear inside his moccasins when the colder weather came.

The marten pelt was removed from the body by splitting it down the inside of the hind legs to the trunk, and then pulling it down over the head, turning it inside out in the process. In the tilt were a number of stretching boards, that Douglas had provided, tapered down from several inches wide at one end until they were narrow enough at the other end to slip snugly into the nose of the pelt. Over one of these, with the flesh side out, the skin was tightly drawn and fastened. Then with his knife Bob sc.r.a.ped it carefully, removing such fat and flesh as had adhered to it, after which he placed it in a convenient place to dry.

Bob felt very much elated over this first catch of fur, and was anxious to get at the real trapping. It was only Tuesday, and Bill would not be at the river tilt until Friday of the following week, but he decided to start back the next morning and set all his traps. So on Wednesday morning, with a quarter of venison on his flat sled, he turned down over the trail.

Everything went well. Signs of fur were good and Bob was br.i.m.m.i.n.g over with antic.i.p.ation when a week later he reached the river.

Bill did not arrive until after dark the next evening, and when he pushed the tilt door open he found Bob frying venison steak and a kettle of tea ready for supper.

"Ho, Bob, back ahead o' me, be un? Where'd ye get th' deer's meat?"

"Knocked un over after you left me. 'Tis fine t' be back an' see you, Bill. I've been wonderful lonesome, and wantin' t' see you wonderful bad."

"An' I was thinkin' ye'd be gettin' lonesome by now. You'll not be mindin' bein' alone when you gets used to un. It's all gettin' used t'

un."

"An' what's th' signs o' fur? Be there much marten signs?"

"Aye, some. Looks like un goin' t' be some. An' be there much signs on th' Big Hill trail? d.i.c.k says there's a lot o' footin' his way."

"I _has_ one marten," said Bob proudly, "an' finds good signs."

"Un _has_ one a'ready! An' be un a good un?"

"Not so bad."

"Well, you be startin' fine, gettin' th' first marten an' th' first deer."

Bill had taken off his adikey and disposed of his things, and they sat down to eat and enjoy a long evening's chat.

With every week the cold grew in intensity, and with every storm the snow grew deeper, hiding the smaller trees entirely and reaching up towards the lower limbs of the larger ones. The little tilts were covered to the roof, and only a hole in the white ma.s.s showed where the door was.

The sun now described a daily narrowing arc in the heavens, and the hours of light were so few that the hunters found it difficult to cover the distance between their tilts in the little while from dawn to dark. On moonlight mornings Bob started long before day, and on starlight evenings finished his day's work after night. His cheeks and nose were frost-bitten and black, but he did not mind that for he was doing well. Two weeks before Christmas he brought to the river tilt the fur that he had acc.u.mulated. There were twenty-eight martens, one mink, two red foxes, one cross fox, a lynx and a wolf. These last two animals he had shot. Bill was already in the tilt when he arrived, and complimented him on his good showing.

Christmas fell on Wednesday that year, and Bill brought word that d.i.c.k and Ed were coming up to spend the day with him and Bob. They would reach the tilt on Tuesday night and use the remainder of the week in a caribou hunt, as there were good signs of the animals a little way back in the marshes and they were in need of fresh meat.

"An' I'll not try t' be gettin' here on Friday," said Bill. "I'll be waitin' till Tuesday."