CHAPTER THIRTEEN
In many years there had not been such a storm in all the Northland asthat which followed swiftly in the trail of the first snows that haddriven Neewa into his den--the late November storm of that year whichwill long be remembered as KUSKETA PIPPOON (the Black Year), the yearof great and sudden cold, of starvation and of death.
It came a week after Miki had left the cavern wherein Neewa wassleeping so soundly. Preceding that, when all the forest world layunder its mantle of white, the sun shone day after day, and the moonand stars were as clear as golden fires in the night skies. The windwas out of the west. The rabbits were so numerous they made hard floorsof the snow in thicket and swamp. Caribou and moose were plentiful, andthe early cry of wolves on the hunt was like music in the ears of athousand trappers in shack and teepee.
With appalling suddenness came the unexpected. There was no warning.The day had dawned with a clear sky, and a bright sun followed thedawn. Then the world darkened so swiftly that men on their traplinespaused in amazement. With the deepening gloom came a strange moaning,and there was something in that sound that seemed like the rolling of agreat drum--the knell of an impending doom. It was THUNDER. The warningwas too late. Before men could turn back to safety, or build themselvesshelters, the Big Storm was upon them. For three days and three nightsit raged like a mad bull from out of the north. In the open barrens noliving creature could stand upon its feet. The forests were broken, andall the earth was smothered. All things that breathed buriedthemselves--or died; for the snow that piled itself up in windrows andmountains was round and hard as leaden shot, and with it came anintense cold.
On the third day it was sixty degrees below zero in the country betweenthe Shamattawa and Jackson's Knee. Not until the fourth day did livingthings begin to move. Moose and caribou heaved themselves up out of thethick covering of snow that had been their protection; smaller animalsdug their way out of the heart of deep drifts and mounds; a half of therabbits and birds were dead. But the most terrible toll was of men.Many of those who were caught out succeeded in keeping the life withintheir bodies, and dragged themselves back to teepee and shack. Butthere were also many who did not return--five hundred who died betweenHudson Bay and the Athabasca in those three terrible days of theKUSKETA PIPPOON.
In the beginning of the Big Storm Miki found himself in the "burnt"country of Jackson's Knee, and instinct sent him quickly into deepertimber. Here he crawled into a windfall of tangled trunks andtree-tops, and during the three days he did not move. Buried in theheart of the storm, there came upon him an overwhelming desire toreturn to Neewa's den, and to snuggle up to him once more, even thoughNeewa lay as if dead. The strange comradeship that had grown up betweenthe two--their wanderings together all through the summer, the joys andhardships of the days and months in which they had fought and feastedlike brothers--were memories as vivid in his brain as if it had allhappened yesterday. And in the dark wind-fall, buried deeper and deeperunder the snow, he dreamed.
He dreamed of Challoner, who had been his master in the days of hisjoyous puppyhood; he dreamed of the time when Neewa, the motherlesscub, was brought into camp, and of the happenings that had come to themafterward; the loss of his master, of their strange and thrillingadventures in the wilderness, and last of all of Neewa's denning-up. Hecould not understand that. Awake, and listening to the storm, hewondered why it was that Neewa no longer hunted with him, but hadcurled himself up into a round ball, and slept a sleep from which hecould not rouse him. Through the long hours of the three days andnights of storm it was loneliness more than hunger that ate at hisvitals. When on the morning of the fourth day he came out from underthe windfall his ribs were showing and there was a reddish film overhis eyes. First of all he looked south and east, and whined.
Through twenty miles of snow he travelled back that day to the ridgewhere he had left Neewa. On this fourth day the sun shone like adazzling fire. It was so bright that the glare of the snow pricked hiseyes, and the reddish film grew redder. There was only a cold glow inthe west when he came to the end of his journey. Dusk had already begunto settle over the roofs of the forests when he reached the ridge whereNeewa had found the cavern. It was no longer a ridge. The wind hadpiled the snow up over it in grotesque and monstrous shapes. Rocks andbushes were obliterated. Where the mouth of the cavern should have beenwas a drift ten feet deep. Cold and hungry, thinned by his days andnights of fasting, and with his last hope of comradeship shattered bythe pitiless mountains of snow, Miki turned back over his trail. Therewas nothing left for him now but the old windfall, and his heart was nolonger the heart of the joyous comrade and brother of Neewa, the bear.His feet were sore and bleeding, but still he went on. The stars cameout; the night was ghostly white in their pale fire; and it wascold--terribly cold. The trees began to snap. Now and then there came areport like a pistol-shot as the frost snapped at the heart of timber.It was thirty degrees below zero. And it was growing colder. With thewindfall as his only inspiration Miki drove himself on. Never had hetested his strength or his endurance as he strained them now. Olderdogs would have fallen in the trail or have sought shelter or rest. ButMiki was the true son of Hela, his giant Mackenzie hound father, and hewould have continued until he triumphed--or died.
But a strange thing happened. He had travelled twenty miles to theridge, and fifteen of the twenty miles back, when a shelf of snow gaveway under his feet and he was pitched suddenly downward. When hegathered his dazed wits and stood up on his half frozen legs he foundhimself in a curious place. He had rolled completely into awigwam-shaped shelter of spruce boughs and sticks, and strong in hisnostrils was the SMELL OF MEAT. He found the meat not more than a footfrom the end of his nose. It was a chunk of frozen caribou fleshtransfixed on a stick, and without questioning the manner of itspresence he gnawed at it ravenously. Only Jacques Le Beau, who livedeight or ten miles to the east, could have explained the situation.Miki had rolled into one of his trap-houses, and it was the bait he waseating.
There was not much of it, but it fired Miki's blood with new life.There was smell in his nostrils now, and he began clawing in the snow.After a little his teeth struck something hard and cold. It wassteel--a fisher trap. He dragged it up from under a foot of snow, andwith it came a huge rabbit. The snow had so protected the rabbit that,although several days dead, it was not frozen stiff. Not until the lastbone of it was gone did Miki's feast end. He even devoured the head.Then he went on to the windfall, and in his warm nest slept untilanother day.
That day Jacques Le Beau--whom the Indians called "Muchet-ta-aao" (theOne with an Evil Heart)--went over his trapline and rebuilt hissnow-smothered "houses" and re-set his traps.
It was in the afternoon that Miki, who was hunting, struck his trail ina swamp several miles from the windfall. No longer was his soul stirredby the wild yearning for a master. He sniffed, suspiciously, of LeBeau's snowshoe tracks and the crest along his spine trembled as hecaught the wind, and listened. He followed cautiously, and a hundredyards farther on came to one of Le Beau's KEKEKS or trap-shelters. Heretoo, there was meat--fixed on a peg. Miki reached in. From under hisfore-paw came a vicious snap and the steel jaws of a trap flung sticksand snow into his face. He snarled, and for a few moments he waited,with his eyes on the trap. Then he stretched himself until he reachedthe meat, without advancing his feet. Thus he had discovered the hiddenmenace of the steel jaws, and instinct told him how to evade them.
For another third of a mile he followed Le Beau's tracks. He sensed thepresence of a new and thrilling danger, and yet he did not turn off thetrail. An impulse which he was powerless to resist drew him on. He cameto a second trap, and this time he robbed the bait-peg withoutspringing the thing which he knew was concealed close under it. Hislong fangs clicked as he went on. He was eager for a glimpse of theman-beast. But he did not hurry. A third, a fourth, and a fifth trap herobbed of their meat.
Then, as the day ended, he swung westward and covered quickly the fivemiles between the swamp and his windfall.
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Half an hour later Le Beau came back over the line. He saw the firstempty KEKEK, and the tracks in the snow.
"TONNERRE!--a wolf!" he exclaimed. "And in broad day!"
Then a slow look of amazement crept into his face, and he fell upon hisknees in the snow and examined the tracks.
"NON!" he gasped. "It is a dog! A devil of a wild dog--robbing mytraps!"
He rose to his feet, cursing. From the pocket of his coat he drew asmall tin box, and from this box he took a round ball of fat. In theheart of the fat was a strychnine capsule. It was a poison-bait, to beset for wolves and foxes.
Le Beau chuckled exultantly as he stuck the deadly lure on the end ofthe bait-peg.
"OW, a wild dog," he growled. "I will teach him. To-morrow he will bedead."
On each of the five ravished bait-pegs he placed a strychnine capsulerolled in its inviting little ball of fat.