George T. Marsh

“ On the following day the rising sun overtook two dog-teams hurrying westward on the Fort Hope trail. Miles behind them still smouldered the camp-fire in the spruce. Ahead of the teams swung a tall Cree, breaking trail, while at the gee-pole of each sled a caribou-skin-clad driver with long dog-whip urged on the huskies. But lashed to the second sled lay the blanketed form of one whose voyaging days over white winter trails and wind-whipped lakes of summer were forever ended. ”

“ Through the desolate cliff country, where the river winds like a huge reptile between towering, timberless shores behind which the sun sets almost at noon; on past the thousand islands where, in summer, the trout and dore lie below a hundred silver cascades; up the great lake that the Ojibways call "The Charmed Water," where the river sturgeon breed; over three hundred miles of subarctic winter trail they toiled, that the factor at Hope might open his mail from Scotland on Christmas day, and a half-breed keep his word. ”

“ Often before strong men had been loosed from the death-grip of the sullen winter trails, to creep into Fort Hope spent and broken.
When but a few strides separated him from the outstretched hand of the advancing factor, Pierre suddenly reeled in his tracks. Collecting himself, he again lurched forward, but before Esau could reach him, fell headlong to the trail. ”

“ At last the Christmas mail—given up as lost in the blizzard—was in from the Big Water. Men, women, and dogs rushed to the shore to greet those already mourned as victims of the long trail. To the eager ears of the excited Esau and Pierre floated the Ojibway welcome: "Bo-jo! Bo-jo!"
Pierre waved his hand, as Esau shouted in answer. "Quey! Quey!" the salutation of the Crees. The heart of the old man pounded in his breast, while the old fire inflamed his blood. The huskies, despite the blows of the Cree drivers, sprang forward upon the heels of the now delirious half-breed. ”

“ The Crees' protests that their dogs were raw with harness-sores and that they themselves needed rest were of no avail with one in whose ears still echoed the words of the factor at Albany. So leg-weary men and dogs slaved on under the stars. But at last, in camp, the torture of "mal raquette" in the stiffened legs of Esau and the Crees ceased, when the drugged sleep of exhaustion claimed them, while Pierre of the broken heart lay with his grief far into the silent night. ”

“ The boy started as if the cry were an omen of evil, but Pierre had but one thought. "De mail—she mus' go tru," he whispered painfully.
The boy did not protest. An Indian never does at orders he does not intend to obey. There had been a rupture of blood-vessels in the lungs, a not uncommon occurrence in the North among the red runners of the Company. If it proved to be a bad hemorrhage, Pierre would die; if not, he would be able later to travel back to Albany on the sled. There was nothing to do but wait. So he fed the dogs and made soup of the pemican for the sick man. ”

“ And each day when the shadows of the northern night crept out over the white river from the timbered shores and the killing pace began to lag, the weak voice of the benumbed sick man on the sled would urge them on into the twilight. ”

“ But the veteran who bore the scars of forty years of battling with the fury of the subarctic winter did not wait in camp for the storm to blow itself out. It was his last trip to Fort Hope and the mail should go through. The next long snow one of the young men might crack his whip over the Christmas mail-team, but he would need the heart and sinews of a king caribou to match the records that Pierre Grassette—known among the Fort Hope Ojibways as "Flying Feet"—had left for the long Albany trail. ”

“ He might get well—there was not so much pain and he coughed less—or he might die there on the shores of the Albany, and in April, when the snow melted, the ravens would finish what the wolves and foxes had left of Pierre Grassette, voyageur of the great Company. Well, a man must die sometime, he mused, and how better than on the trail, as he had lived?
Before Esau left, Pierre had wrung from the boy the promise that, if he returned with the Crees to find him dead, he would bury him in the snow on the shore, and push on to Fort Hope with the mails. ”

“ Once his fame as a voyageur had travelled from Whale River, in lonely Ungawa, down to Norway House, far in the Ojibway country. Into the dark eyes of the old Cree there had flashed momentarily the fire of his lost youth, as he tossed his head with pride at the memories of his prowess in days long dead. Then the words of the factor had banished his dream. "Next year a younger man will go, for the mails must get through on time."
Never had Esau seen such a pace set on snow-shoes as Pierre had made that first clear day out of Albany. Inured to the winter trails though he was. ”

“ Always his reply had been a hoarse "Marche!" as he struck the lead-dog with an unwonted fierceness that Esau could not comprehend. But old Pierre had not deigned to voice the thoughts that consumed him, and the boy, Indian-like, did not question. So, forcing the huskies to the limit of their endurance and encouraging the lad, who already showed signs of the physical strain of the battle with wind and snow, the old Cree had pushed on and on.
"In canoe or on snow-shoes no better man has served the Company. But you're stiffening up and growing too old to take the winter mail to Fort Hope. ”

“ Then through the sleeping forest sang the axes of the Crees, biting deep into two huge birches, and soon where, but a short space before, a man lay freezing by a dying fire, kettles of tea and caribou haunch bubbled and steamed in the roaring flames that licked the great logs. By such slight tenure are held the lives of the dwellers in the North. ”

“ At times, when the fury of the snow-swirls which enveloped them in a blur of white had sucked their very breath, the men threw themselves gasping beside the ice-coated dogs whose red lips and tongues, to which clung the frozen froth of their hot mouths, alone marked them as living things. ”

“ In the morning Pierre was better. Stimulated by the hot tea and soup, he asked the boy to prop him up in his blankets, where he could trace a map of the Albany trail on the snow.
"Up dere," he said, pointing with a lean, shaking finger at his tracings, "de Ghost Riviere meet de Albanee. One sleep up de Ghost you fin' petit lac. On dees lac de Cree hunt fur. Go an' bring two man. De mail she go tru for sure." ”

“ When they had eaten, Esau told his story to Pierre, who lay swathed in blankets by the fire.
"Wen I leave you," said the lad, cutting with his hunting-knife a pipeful of Company niggerhead and lighting it with an ember, "I keep dees tam to de beeg riviere at de islan' and sleep at de Cree camp on de petit lac. But I fin' de chil' and squaws alone. De men hunt deer in de muskeg country. Two boy I send to fin' dem and say I wait one sleep and den go back to de Albanee. But de squaw tell me de men not go if I do not wait. ”