Burned Bridges
Page 21Meanwhile, MacDonald, who had vanished into the woods with a rifle in
his hand at daybreak, came back about noon with a deer's carcass slung
on his sturdy back. This, after it was skinned, the two breeds cut into
pieces the thickness of a man's wrist and as long as they could make
them, rubbed well with salt and hung on a stretched line in the sun. The
purpose and preparation of "jerky" was duly elucidated to Thompson;
rather profitless explanation, for he had no rifle, nor any knowledge
whatever in the use of firearms.
"Bagosh, dat man Ah'm wonder w'ere hees raise," Mike said to his partner
once when Thompson was out of earshot. "Hees ask more damfool question
een ten minute dan a man hees answer een t'ree day. W'at hees gon' do
By midafternoon all that was possible in the way of settling their man
had been accomplished, even to a pile of firewood sufficient to last him
two weeks. MacDonald contributed that after one brief exhibition of
Thompson's axemanship. Short of remaining on the spot like a pair of
swarthy guardian angels there was no further help they could give him,
and their solicitude did not run to that beneficent extreme. And so
about three o'clock Mike Breyette surveyed the orderly cabin, the pile
of chopped wood, and the venison drying in the sun, and said briskly: "Well, M'sieu Thompson, Ah theenk we go show you hon Lone Moose village
now. Dere's one w'ite man Ah don' know 'tall. But der's breed familee
call Lachlan, eef she's not move 'way somew'ere. Dat familee she's talk
dem Lachlan, eh? Ah theenk us two feller we're gon' beet dat water weeth
de paddle een de morneeng."
A man does not easily forego habits that have become second nature.
Breyette and MacDonald put on their dilapidated hats, filled their
pipes, and were ready for anything from a social call to a bear hunt.
Thompson had to shave, wash up, brush his hair, put on a tie and collar,
which article of dress he donned without a thought that the North was
utterly devoid of laundries, that he would soon be reduced to flannel
shirts which he must wash himself. His preparations gave the breeds
another trick of his to grin slyly over. But Thompson was preparing
it precisely as he would have gone about getting ready for a Conference,
or a cup of tea with a meeting of the Ladies' Aid. Eventually, however,
the three set out across the trunk-littered clearing.
The thin place in the belt of timber to the northward proved barely a
hundred yards deep. On the farther side the brushy edge of the woods
gave on the open meadow around which the Lone Moose villagers had built
their cabins. Thompson swept the crescent with a glance, taking in the
dozen or so dwellings huddling as it were under the protecting wings of
the forest, and his gaze came to rest on the more impressive habitation
of Sam Carr.