Dillon Wallace - The Gaunt Gray Wolf

Shad, less toughened than his companions, suffered more than they. He was actually made ill for a day or two by the poison thus inoculated into his system, though with his characteristic determination, he still insisted, against the protests of the others, upon doing his full share of the work. Dick advised him, finally, to carry a fat pork rind in his pocket and to occasionally apply the greasy side of the rind to his face and hands. This he discovered offered some relief, though, as he remarked, grease, added to blood and sweat, gave him the appearance of a painted savage.

With the evening camp-fire, however, came a respite to the weary travellers, and recompense for all the hardship and toil of the day. Here they would relax after supper, and with vast enjoyment smoke and chat or tell stories of wild adventure.

Shad contributed tales of college pranks, which never failed to bring forth uproarious laughter, while his vivid descriptions of battles on the gridiron or on the diamond, illustrated with diagrams drawn with a stick upon the ground, and minutely explained, held his hearers in suspense until the final goal was kicked or the last inning played.

Dick and Ed described many stirring personal adventures, the latter embellishing his stories with so many fantastic flights of imagination that Shad would scarcely have known where fact ended and fiction began had Dick not made it a point to interject his warnings of the eternal vengeance that awaited Ed if he did not "have a care of his yamin'."

One morning during the third week after leaving Wolf Bight, a beautiful sheet of placid water opened before them in a far-reaching vista to the northwest. On either side of the narrow lake rose towering cliffs of granite, their dark faces lighted at intervals by brooklets tumbling in cascades from the heights above. A loon laughed weirdly in the distance, and from the hills above a wolf sounded a dismal howl. It was a scene of rugged, primeval grandeur, and Shad, taken completely by surprise, caught his breath.

"'Tis Lake Wanakapow," explained Ed. "There'll be no more trackin' or portagin'. 'Twill be straight sailin' an' paddlin' from this on. Th' first tilt o' th' Big Hill trail's handy, an' if th' wind holds fair we'll reach un by th' end o' th' week, whatever."

For the first time since their departure the voyageurs were enabled to don dry clothing, with the assurance that they could remain dry and comfortable throughout the day. The evenings were becoming frosty and exhilarating. The black flies and mosquitoes had ceased to annoy. Wild geese and ducks upon the waters, and flocks of ptarmigans along the shores, gave promise of an abundance and variety of food.

With the changed conditions, in marked contrast to the toil and hardships of the preceding weeks, Shad's desire to remain throughout the winter grew. The lure of the wilderness had its power upon him.

The first tilt of the Big Hill trail was reached on Saturday, as Ed had predicted. Here camp was pitched, the boat finally unloaded, and preparation made for Dick and Bill to begin their return voyage on Monday morning.

When supper was eaten and they were gathered about the evening camp-fire in blissful relaxation, silently watching the aurora borealis work its wild wonders in the sky, Shad suddenly asked:

"Are you certain, Bob, I'd not be a burden to you if I remained here all winter, You know, I'm a tenderfoot in the woods."

"Oh, no!" Bob assured enthusiastically. "You'd be no burden! An' when your feet gets tender you can bide in th' tilt an' rest un."

"I don't mean that my feet are tender in that way," laughed Shad, "but I'm a novice in woodcraft and I've never done any trapping. You'd have to teach me a great deal about these things, and I don't want to stay if I'll hinder your work in the least."

"Oh, you'd never be hinderin' th' work! An' you'd be a wonderful lot o' company, whatever! I hopes you'll stay, Shad!"

"Thank you, Bob. I'll stay. It will put me back a whole year in college, but I'll stay anyhow. My experience with you will be worth the sacrifice of a year in college, I'm sure."

"Now that be grand!" exclaimed Bob, his face beaming pleasure.

"An' Shad stays, Ed, he'll give Bob a hand with th' tilts," suggested Dick. "Can't you go back, now, with me an' Bill, t' help us up with our outfits? 'Twill be a wonderful hard an' slow pull for just th' two of us."

"Be you thinkin', now, you can manage th' tilts?" asked Ed, turning to Bob.

"O' course me an' Shad can manage un," assured Bob.

"I'll go back, then, Dick," consented Ed. "'Twould be hard t' manage with just two on th' boat."

Arrangements were made for the three trappers to bring Shad some adequate winter clothing upon their return, letters were written home, and at daylight on Monday morning adieus were said. Bob and Shad stood upon the shore watching the boat bearing their friends away, until it turned a bend in the river below and was lost to view.

"We'll not see un again for five weeks," said Bob regretfully, as they retraced their steps to the embers of the camp-fire over which breakfast had been cooked.

"And in the meantime," began Shad gaily, with a sweep of his arm, "we are monarch, of all–" Suddenly he stopped. His eyes, following the sweep of his arm, had fallen upon two Indians watching them from the shadow of the spruce trees beyond their camp.

"Sishetakushin and Mookoomahn!" exclaimed Bob.

The moment they were recognised the two Indians strode forward, laughing, and grasped Bob's hand in a manner that left no doubt of their pleasure at meeting him, while both voiced their feeling in a torrent of tumultuous words.

They were tall, lithe, sinewy fellows, clad in buckskin shirt, tight-fitting buckskin leggings, and moccasins. They wore no hats, but a band of buckskin, decorated in colours, passing around the forehead, held in subjection the long black hair, which fell nearly to their shoulders. In the hollow of his left arm each carried a long, muzzle-loading trade gun, and Mookoomahn, the younger of the two, also carried at his back a bow and a quiver of arrows.

"These be th' Injuns I were tellin' you of," Bob finally introduced, when an opportunity offered. "Shake hands with un, Shad. This un is Sishetakushin, an' this un is his son, Mookoomahn. I've been tellin' they you're my friend."

In their attitude toward Shad they were dignified and reserved. Neither could speak English, and Bob, who had a fair mastery of the Indian tongue, interpreted.

"We are glad to meet the friend of White Brother of the Snow," said Sishetakushin, acting as spokesman. "We welcome him to our country. White Brother of the Snow tells us he will remain for many moons. He will visit our lodge with White Brother of the Snow and eat our meat. He will be welcome."

"I thank you," responded Shad. "'White Brother of the Snow has told me how kind you were to him when he was in trouble, and it is a great pleasure to meet you. I will certainly visit your lodge with him and eat your meat."

The ceremony of introduction completed, Bob renewed the fire and brewed a kettle of tea for his visitors. They drank it greedily, and at a temperature that would have scalded a white man's throat.

"They's wonderful fond o' tea, and tobacco, too," explained Bob, "an' they only gets un when they goes t' Ungava onct or twict a year."

Upon Bob's suggestion that, should they meet Indians, it would prove an acceptable gift, Shad had purchased at the post and brought with him a bountiful supply of black plug tobacco, such as the natives used, and with this hint from Bob he gave each of the Indians a half-dozen plugs. The swarthy faces and black eyes of the visitors lighted with pleasure, and from that moment much of the reserve that they had hitherto maintained toward him vanished.