about her.”
“Her story is simple enough. She’s of Scotch stock, from down East somewhere. As a mere girl she married a man who turned out to be a drunkard; left him to become a nursemaid in Toronto; then, about thirty years ago, she came here to work for John Mack.”
“And who’s John Mack?”
Doctor Blake stuffed his pipe.
“Old John’s another unusual character. As a young fellow he was the most beautiful human being I ever saw; the best woodsman and lumberjack on the river. At about forty he decided to settle down, married a Durban girl and got a job as express agent. His wife died giving birth to their first child—a boy. There was no one to look after it. Martha’s a sort of distant cousin of John’s. He heard that she was working in Toronto and asked her to come and keep house for him. She’s been here ever since.”
“But where does her hard luck come in?”
“Because she gave her life to this kid, nursed him like a mother, sacrificed her youth—for nothing. He turned out a bum, always in trouble. Every once in a while he’d stage a reform, and Martha and John, between ’em, would give him a fresh start. But he always tricked ’em somehow. Finally, after he’d been sent to jail a couple of times, the old man kicked him out. About two years ago, John contracted a fatal illness. He knew his number was up, and, realizing what Martha had meant to him all these years, he made over his life-insurance policy to her. It’s for ten thousand dollars, fully paid up.”
“That was pretty decent of him.”
“Little enough in return for her lifetime of devotion. Martha stripped herself of most of her own savings to get Lem out of his difficulties and put him back on his feet, from time to time; and after John’s operation and his wages had stopped, she supplemented his tiny pension, paying for doctors, medicines and household expenses until she had nothing left. She adores him. He’s been the real love of her life, I guess, but being a married woman—her husband died only about six months ago—there’s been no suggestion of romance between them. Recently, John’s illness took a turn for the worse, and, as often happens in such cases, he passed through a depression during which he became so irritable, at times even abusive, that she could stand it no longer, secured a village girl to act in her place and left the house. Not having a penny to her name, she had to take any job she could get, which happened to be chambermaid at the George.”
“I understand now what you mean by her having had a tough break,” said Mr. Tutt.
It was Martha, fully and crisply dressed, who awoke the old lawyer before daylight next morning and, a few minutes later, brought him a tray of hot rolls, coffee, eggs and bacon which she had cooked herself.
“Be sure to keep warm,” she urged, as she let him out into the darkness. “I’ll keep an eye on your belongings while you’re away. I hope you have good luck.”
“I’ll save a salmon for you,” promised Mr. Tutt.
The Whooper was panting beside the platform, its overheated smoking car already crowded with lumberjacks going back to camp after the week end, the air foul with the fumes of whisky and bad tobacco. A series of snorts, followed by a terrific jerk, and the little train started. Angus hopped on and assisted another man, obviously the worse for liquor, up the steps. The guide’s face was dour as he entered.
“All set!” he growled. “This is Lem Mack, our cook.... Say howdy to Mr. Tutt, Lem.”
The man, without replying, collapsed into a seat and closed his eyes.
“He’ll be all right,” remarked Angus. “He was on a binge all yesterday. I had to drag him out of bed and help him on with his clothes to get him here at all.”
“Do you know anything about him?”
“I don’t know any of these hairy apes from around here. They say he comes of good people. He was all I could get.”
Angus’ “hairy ape” lay there, snoring, a trickle of tobacco juice meandering across his unshaven chin. So this was the swine that old Martha had sacrificed her youth and savings for!
They rode on in the fetid atmosphere without speaking. Those of the lumberjacks who were not playing Forty-five were either singing or sleeping. There were a few short-lived fights. Suddenly the kerosene lamps paled in their haze of smoke; the sky above the racketing pine and spruce tops turned yellow; day broke through the frosted windows. Some hours later, the Whooper uttered a prolonged wail, and, rattling over a trestle, came to a standstill on an embankment above a swift molasses-colored stream.
Angus took the sleeping man by the shoulders and shook him.
“Wake up! We’re most there!” he ordered.
Mack sat up and wiped his mouth with the back of his fist. “Take your damn hands off me!” he snarled, getting slowly to his feet.
The crew unloaded the two canoes, the engine coughed, there was a succession of jerks, a whistle, and the three men were left alone in a white and silent world. Launching the canoes, they divided the dunnage between them. With the old man sitting in the bow of the first, Angus took the paddle in the stern, leaving the cook to follow in the second and smaller one. The stillness was unbroken save by the dip of the paddles and the snap of the ice panes as their wake reached the shore. No hawk hung suspended overhead; no beaver slapped the water in warning of their approach; no kingfisher dipped ahead of them, an avant-courier. There was no indication of life in this vacuum of sound and sight. Yet Mr. Tutt knew that beneath the skim along the snow-covered banks and motionless upon the bottom of the shallows were lying hundreds of great fish, caught the preceding autumn by the sudden forming of the ice which had turned the sand bars into ramparts, hermetically sealed the pools, closed the mouths of the brooks where they had been spawning, and held them prisoners, rationless, until the spring.
They swept on down the river. The sun had slipped under a bank of cloud and a knifelike wind had come up. Mr. Tutt thrust his mittened hands deep into his pockets and wiggled his old toes. Gad! It was cold! The cook had fallen a quarter mile behind. At ten o’clock, when they stopped to “bile,” Angus had already got the fire going, long before he overtook them. It was clear that he was in a recalcitrant mood. Grudgingly he dug out the bacon and eggs, and squatted down without speaking, with the frying pan in his hand.
“How much farther are you guys goin’?” he growled at length. “I didn’t sign up for no polar expedition!”
“To the Schoolhouse.”
“That’s forty miles! There won’t be time to make camp before dark. Besides, it’s goin’ to snow. We better stay here,” he rasped.
“I shall decide where to fish,” replied Mr. Tutt curtly.
They paddled on under a leaden sky. Presently it began to snow. The great flakes came floating down like feathers, melting in the black water, but accumulating in a heavy blanket upon the canoes and dunnage. It was four o’clock when the Schoolhouse—a wrecked shanty without doors or windows, reeling drunkenly at the edge of what had once been a clearing—came into view. The cook was nowhere to be seen. Angus carried their paraphernalia up the bank and piled it inside, while Mr. Tutt, standing half-congealed amid broken glass and the filth left behind by porcupines, set up his rod and rigged it, putting on a huge flamingo fly he had seen in a window in Durban. Then they pushed off into the blinding snow.
“They’ll be in midstream,” said Angus. “The
