CHAPTER VIII THE TOLL OF THE NORTH

Corporal Rand’s bloodshot eyes watched the bannock baking before the fire. It was a small bannock, as bannocks go—a few ounces of flour, water and salt, simmering and bubbling there in the bottom of the frying pan. Unsupported by as much as a single pinch of baking powder, this culinary effort of Rand’s wore an appearance of deep and utter dejection. Either as a work of art or as an achievement in cookery the thing was a failure—an unsavory, unappetizing mess. Yet the corporal regarded it with elation in his heart. His mouth watered and his stomach did an acrobatic flip-flop of happy anticipation. It was a wonderful moment for Rand.
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Half-starved, almost worn to the bone, in his desperate effort to make Keechewan Mission before the final freeze-up, the young policeman was in dire straits. For several days now he had subsisted chiefly on the dry and withered berries of saskatoon, with an occasional small morsel of bird meat. For hundreds of miles he had trekked along in worn moccasins, flapping miserably about his ankles, the bare soles of his feet pattering monotonously over a rough, difficult, uncertain trail.

Since leaving Mackenzie River barracks one disaster had followed another. First, he had lost his horse and rifle in attempting to ford a difficult river. Three days later, while he slept, there had come in the night a soft-footed Indian prowler who had, without compunction, stolen his only pair of service boots, his shoulder-pack and his revolver.

He had been placed in a terrible predicament. Barefooted, hungry, an unabating rage in his heart, he had struggled on for a distance of nearly twenty miles before luck favored him to the extent of directing him to an Indian encampment, where he ate his first full meal in many days and where, after many threats and much patient dickering, he had been able to purchase a pair of moosehide moccasins.

A few days following this fortunate meeting, he had been reduced almost to his previous condition of want and suffering. Then the tables had turned again. Not more than an hour ago a great good fortune had befallen him.
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He had come down into a little valley between two hills; hobbling down on tortured feet to a sizeable grove of poplar and jack-pine. Half-cursing, half-moaning to himself, he had crossed a low ravine, then scrambled up in the mellow afternoon sunlight to the edge of a small natural clearing. His incurious gaze swept the view before him. For a moment he paused, leaning somewhat dizzily against a small sapling before continuing his course southward to the Wapiti River, where he had planned to camp for the night.

In the short space of time in which he stood there, shaking with fatigue, there impressed itself presently upon his vision an object of unusual interest. It was the small stump of a tree—an ancient, weather-beaten stump, probably not more than eight or ten inches in diameter. As Rand looked at it, a half-hearted wonderment stole over him, then a sudden quickening of the heart. Here before him was a man-made stump, the first he had seen in the last two hundred miles of steady travelling through the wilderness.

Someone, perhaps a long time ago, had felled a tree here. The corporal could easily make out the imprint of an ax. And looking farther he had found other stumps, upon which trees had once rested—about thirty of them in all—standing there old and rotten at the heart, like so many dreary sentinels in an unsightly garden of desolation.
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Suddenly Rand gave vent to a sharp, quick cry of excitement. In spite of the fact that his feet hurt him almost beyond endurance, he went forward at a run, racing over the thick dry grass. The trees had been cut down for a purpose, as he had surmised. He could see the cabin now, faintly showing through the screen of underbrush on the opposite side of the clearing.

But his heart fell as he came closer to the cabin. A sickening wave of disgust and disappointment swept over him. He could see plainly that no one lived there. The door, partially open, hung loosely on broken hinges, while across the threshold, the grass had woven a tangled mat which encroached a full twelve inches into the dark interior.

Years had passed probably since a human foot had stepped within that cabin. In its present untenanted, dilapidated state it had very little to offer to a man whose stomach gnawed with the irrepressible pangs of hunger. In a fit of sudden despair, he stood and regarded it darkly.

Nevertheless, he strode through the doorway, for no apparent reason that he could imagine, unless it was to satisfy a somewhat morbid curiosity as to what he would find within. In the dim light of the single room, he moved cautiously forward, peering about him with half-frightened eyes. His feet stirred up a choking dust. There was a smell about the place he did not like. It rose to his nostrils—a faintly sickening odor of decayed plants.
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A crudely constructed cupboard at one side of the room attracted his attention. He walked over and examined it. The lower shelf contained nothing of interest: a few black, dirty pots, covered with rust. On the second shelf there was a miscellaneous assortment of knives and forks, a small hammer with one of the claws broken, two enamelled plates, chipped badly, but otherwise in fair condition.

The policeman found it necessary to rise on tiptoes in order to reach the third shelf at all; but after a good deal of fumbling and groping about, his hand came in contact with a round object, which he lifted down for better inspection.

The weight of the thing, about six or seven pounds, indicated that it was not entirely empty. It was round and cylindrical in shape and was fitted on the top with an air-tight cover. Rand’s face became damp with moisture as he turned the vessel slowly around in his hands. He shook it several times, listening to the dull thud inside. Then, with a quick in-taking of breath, he placed it hurriedly on the floor and attempted to pry off the lid.

Several minutes later—for the cover was rusted down—he straightened up, gibbering inanely. His eyes were bright with the joy of his discovery. He laughed loudly, gleefully—a hint of madness in his laugh. He stooped forward again, ramming one hand into the cool, white substance. For one delicious moment he pawed around in it.

“Flour! Flour!” he gloated. “This is lucky!”
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And so he ate the bannock with thankfulness in his heart. He had used very little of the flour. With careful rationing, it would still last him a long time—perhaps even to Keechewan Mission.

He sat now, staring into the fire, vaguely wondering what the morrow would bring forth. He was in a much happier frame of mind than he had been for many days. Things looked brighter somehow—after that bannock. In the morning he would build a raft and cross the Wapiti. After that there would be fairly smooth and open country until he came to the Little Moose. More trouble there. A day or two crossing the divide—then Keechewan Mission less than thirty miles away.

A short time later, Rand stirred himself and hobbled down to the river. He would bathe his aching feet in ice-cold water before turning in. They were in terrible condition and required immediate attention. If only he could get the pain and fever out of them. Tomorrow morning he would tear up his shirt and make soft cushions to wear inside his moccasins.
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For several minutes he sat, dangling his feet in the glistening, gurgling flood of the turbulent Wapiti. It was so dark now that he could scarcely see. It was chilly sitting there on the rock with a north wind whipping across his face and the water, like ice, around his ankles. Much as he hated to admit it, the weather was not promising. In fact, there was an indefinable something in the air, a vague, mysterious portent that caused him to shiver with apprehension.

Suddenly, above the sound of the river and the moaning of the wind, startled and alert, Rand heard a splashing out in mid-stream. A moose or caribou, was his first thought. Too bad he didn’t have a gun. In his half-famished state a moose-steak now would be his salvation.

A human voice carried across the water. Another voice. Rand could not credit his senses. He rose, forgetting about his bare feet, and strained his eyes until they hurt in the hope that he might be able to see something. He was all atremble. It was dark out there, dark as black midnight. The water rippled and the wind moaned in the pines. Surely he was mistaken about those voices. He couldn’t hear a thing now—not even a splash.

“Pull out! You’re gettin’ too close tuh shore,” warned a voice, deep and resonant.

There was no mistaking it this time. Rand’s heart leaped. In the tremendous excitement of the moment he forgot himself completely. Like one daft, he sprang from the rock and raced wildly along the shore, cutting his already bruised and battered feet. He screeched at the top of his voice—one long and prolonged screech that shattered the silence.

“Yip! Yih!” shouted Rand, waving his arms.
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“Did you hear that?”—from the river.

“Look out! Look out! You plagued fool. Look out! Now you’ve done it. There!——”

A frenzied splashing of oars, another warning shout—a crash! It was the crumpling impact of wood against rock that Rand heard, followed by the shrieks of two men in mortal terror. Experienced in such matters, he sensed immediately what had occurred. Sweeping down the swift, treacherous current, the boat had veered in too close to shore, had struck a rock and had overturned. The men were in the water. His fault entirely. That foolish screech——

Shouting out his encouragement, the corporal waded out into the stream and, without a moment’s hesitation, dove forward and commenced swimming to their rescue.