Part 7 (1/2)
With a sudden diffidence he sank upon the stone, this handsome boy whose tongue was ever ready and whose heart of a light o' love had taken toll from every maid in the settlement, and for the first time in his life he had no sprightly word, no quip for his careless tongue.
They sat in silence, and presently he saw that her eyes were again half-closed and the dreaming look had settled back in them. She had forgotten his presence.
Never before in his experience had a woman sat thus unmoved beside him when he longed to make her speak, and it stilled him with silent wonder.
He thought of the words of Pierre Garcon that day on the river bank when this maid was new to the post, ”if there is, I would not be the one to waken it and not be found its master,” and they sent a thrill to his inmost being.
Who would awaken her; he wondered, as he watched the cheek beside him from the tail of his eye, a round womanly cheek, sweet and full and rich as a damask rose with the thick lashes above s.h.i.+ning like jet.
Obedient to her silence, he sat still while she dreamed her dream out to its conclusion, and presently she straightened with a little breath like a sigh, unclasped her hands from her knees and turned her glance upon him as if she saw him for the first time.
His head whirled suddenly and he sought for some common word to cover his rare confusion.
”See, Ma'amselle,” he said, pointing, ”the well-lashed packs of the fat winter beaver. Truly they come well laden, these a.s.siniboines, and we may well thank le bon Dieu for the wealth of skins. Is it not a heartening sight?”
The eyes of Maren Le Moyne left his face and swept swiftly down the gentle slope to where the Indians had piled their bales of furs. At the sight they darkened like the waters of a lake when a little wind runs over its surface.
”A heartening sight? Nay, M'sieu,” she said, shaking her head, ”I can find no joy in it.”
”What?”
The trapper was aghast.
”No pleasure in the fruits of a fat season?”
”See the packs of marten, the dark streaks showing a bit at the edges where the fur rounds over the dried skin. How were those pelts taken, M'sieu?”
”How? Why, most cunningly, Ma'amselle,--in traps of the H. B. Company, set with utmost skill, perhaps on a stump above the line of the heavy snows, or balanced nicely at the far end of a slender pole set leaning in the ground. The delicate hand of a seasoned player must match itself with the forest instinct of these small creatures. The little pole holds little snow and the scent of the bait calls the marten up, when, snap! it is fast and waiting for the trapper and the lodge of the a.s.siniboines, the women and the drying.”
”Yes. And those hundreds of beaver, M'sieu?”
Marc Dupre's eyes were s.h.i.+ning and the red in his cheeks flus.h.i.+ng with pleasure.
What more to a man's liking than the exploitation of knowledge gained first-hand in the pursuit of his life's work?
”Again the trap,” he said, ”set this time at the edge of a stream where the beaver huts peek through the ice, or lift their tops above the open water. Neatly they are set, cunning as an Indian himself; hidden in the soft slime at the margin if the water runs, waiting with open jaws in the small runway above the dam where the creatures come out from the swim. A sleek head lifting above the ripples a scrambling foot or two,--snap! again the price of a pound and a half of powder, a tie of tobacco. No footmark must the hunter leave, Ma'amselle, unsplashed with water, no tainting touch of a hand ungloved on chain or stake or trap itself. Ah! one must know the woods and the stream, the cold and the snow and the winds.”
”You know them, M'sieu, I have no doubt,” said Maren, ”for you follow the trapping trail. And those beautiful silver fox, frosty and fine as the sparkle of a winter morning? The heavy hides of the bear, soft and glossy and thick as a folded blanket?”
”All the trap,--unless the latter drops through the flimsy roof of some well-hidden dead-fall, covered with brush.”
The girl was not looking at him, her glance being still on the bustling camp below. The fingers on her knee were laced tight together.
Now she began to speak in a low voice, deep and even.
”Aye! All you have said is true. Wealth, indeed, is in those packs, and patience and cunning and utmost skill, defiance of the snows and the crackling cold, long miles on snowshoes and the hards.h.i.+ps of the trail, the nights in the bough-tied huts, the pack galling the shoulders. But what is all this beside that which waits the runner of the trail at every 'set' in those many miles? Here he finds his leaning-pole. There have been little tracks up its slim roadway, but those were covered by the fall of three days back and the little creature who made them hangs there at the end, three small feet beating the cold air feebly, a tiny head squirming from side to side, two dull black eyes set at the distorted world. He has caught his marten. It has not frozen, for the snow was light and the forest still and thick, and three days have pa.s.sed, M'sieu. Three days! Mon Dieu! How much were those three days worth? The trapper taps the squirming head and puts the bit of fur in his pack-bag. On to the next. The beaver? Dead, M'sieu, thanks to the good G.o.d, drowned in its own sweet water. The pack is heavy with small bodies ere the a.s.siniboine reaches the place where he has laid his trap for the silver fox. And what greets him here? Only a foot gnawed off in the silence of the day and the night, and some beauty gone staggering away to lie and suffer with starvation in the cold.”
The youth was staring at the averted face beside him, mouth open and utter amazement on his features.
Maren went on.
”And lastly, M'sieu, far at the end of the trail,--at the outer, rim of the circle traced by his traps,--he comes eagerly, to peep and peer for what might have happened at the head of the little dip leading down to the stream where the firs bend heavily under their weight of snow.