XXI THE BURNED CABIN
Before sunrise Louis was stirring and woke the others. When Walter triedto move, he found his ankles and calves so stiff and sore that hewondered if he could possibly go on with the march. Of course he must goon. Louis and Neil seemed as spry as ever. He would not hold them back.Pride helped him to set his teeth and bear the pain of getting to hisfeet and moving about. His first few minutes of snowshoeing were agony.As he went on, some of the stiffness wore off, but sharp darts of painstabbed foot, ankle, or leg at every step. Doggedly he trudged behind thetoboggan, thankful that trail breaking through the deep snow preventedspeed.
Keeping to open, level ground at the foot of the hills, Louis watched forfamiliar landmarks. The day was clear and cold. Going north andnorthwest, the party traveled against the piercing wind. The boys walkedwith heads lowered. The dogs, every now and then, veered to one side orstopped and turned about in their traces. Most drivers would have beatenand abused the poor beasts for such behavior, but Louis was not withoutsympathy for them. He himself had to turn his back to the windoccasionally. With a fellow feeling for the dogs, he encouraged ratherthan drove them. Askime did his best, and the others were usually readyto follow him.
What he had seen so far of the Pembina Mountains was a disappointment toWalter. He could not understand why anyone should dignify mere low ridgesand irregular, rolling hills with the name of mountains. Nevertheless,after weeks of open prairie, the rolling, partly wooded land looked goodto him. He felt more at home in broken country.
The wind-driven surface snow obscured the distance, so that landmarkswere difficult to recognize. In a momentary lull, a line of woods,winding out across the plain, was revealed. Louis paused in his trailbreaking, and turned to call to his comrades.
"There is the river again," he cried. "We came too far to the south, as Ithought."
"Is the cabin on the river bank?" asked Walter, hoping that the longtramp was almost over.
"No, it is in the hills about a mile beyond," was the rather discouragingreply.
Walter's heart sank. He had been wondering at every step how long hecould go on. Could he keep going to that line of trees and then on foranother mile or more? He must of course, no matter how much it hurt.
Louis, sure of the way now, led to and across the river, then turned tothe northwest into the broken, hilly country. There they were lessexposed to the sweep of the wind, but in other ways the going was harder.It seemed to Walter that they must have gone at least three miles beyondthe river, when he heard Louis, who had rounded a clump of leaflesstrees, give a cry of dismay. Following their leader, Walter and Neilentered a snug, tree-protected hollow, backed by a steep, sandy slope.And all three stood staring at a roofless, blackened ruin.
Louis was the first to recover himself. "This is bad, yes, but the wallsstill stand, and the chimney has not fallen."
"We can rig up some sort of a roof," Neil responded. "It will be betterthan camping in the open."
Walter said nothing. He had expected to find a cabin all ready foroccupancy, where they could make themselves comfortable at once. Cold andsuffering sharply with the pain in his feet and legs, his bitterdisappointment quite overwhelmed his courage.
"Someone has camped here since the blizzard. There are raquette and sledand dog tracks, but it is strange,"--Louis, turning towards Walter,forgot what he intended to say, seized a handful of snow, made a lunge athis friend, and clapped the snow on his face. "Your cheek is frozen. Itis all white. Rub it,--not so hard, you will take the skin off. Let me doit. Neil, cut some wood, dry branches. We will make a fire the firstthing we do, even if we have no roof over our heads."
Neil took the ax from the sled, and started to obey Louis' order, whilethe latter skilfully rubbed and slapped Walter's stiff, white cheek,until it began to tingle.
The log walls of the old cabin were intact. The door, of heavy, ax-hewnplanks, was only charred. It stood ajar, and Louis pulled it wide openand went in, Walter following. There was no snow within, but the hardearth floor was strewn with the fallen remains of the roof. Had therebeen a plank floor to catch fire, the inside of the house would certainlyhave been burned out, and the walls would probably have gone too. As itwas, the logs were merely blackened, the top ones charred a little. Twobed frames, a stool made of unbarked sticks, and the stone and clayfireplace and chimney were unharmed.
"We will make a fire, warm ourselves and unload the _tabagane_. Then wemust build a new roof."
Louis was not satisfied with the appearance of Walter's frozen cheek. Assoon as the fire was kindled, he melted some snow, removed the warm waterfrom the blaze and added more snow until it was like ice water. He badeWalter bathe his cheek with the cold water and keep on bathing it untilthe frost was drawn out. Noticing the stiffness of his friend's movementsand the signs of suffering in his face, Louis guessed his other trouble.
"You have a pain in the legs?" he inquired. "It is the _mal de raquette_.Everyone not used to snowshoeing has it if he travels long. It is verypainful. Take off your moccasins. Warm your feet and legs and rub them.That will help."
Walter was glad to obey. He expected to do his share in unloading thesled and roofing the cabin, but when Louis saw how inflamed and swollenthe Swiss boy's ankles and insteps were, he refused to let him help.Walter must remain quiet. His work would be to sit on a buffalo robebefore the fire and keep the blaze going.
The roof the others constructed was only a temporary affair. It wasalmost flat, slanting a little towards the rear, as the back wall wasslightly lower than the front. Poles and bark were the materials,weighted with stones to keep them from blowing away. Such a coveringwould not stand a strong wind, but the cabin was well sheltered. In ahard rain the roof would probably leak, and heavy snow might sag it orbreak it. But it would serve for a while at least, and it was the bestthe boys could do in haste and with the materials at hand. By nightfallthey had a cover over their heads, flimsy though it was.
As they were eating their evening meal before a warm blaze, Neil saidthoughtfully, "I wonder how this cabin caught fire. The fellows whocamped here can't have been gone long, yet when we came the fire was outand everything cold."
"Yes," agreed Louis. "Even the ashes on the hearth were cold."
"Probably it broke out in the night," Neil suggested. "Sparks from thechimney started it. But how _could_ they, with the roof covered withsnow?"
"If there had been snow on it, it would not have burned so easily," Louisreturned.
"This place is too sheltered for the wind to blow the snow off the roof.Someone must have cleaned it off. Perhaps the weight was breaking itdown."
"Well, it burned anyway," Walter put in. "All we know is that there was afire, and that some other party was here before we came. Do you rememberthose men we saw in the mirage, Louis?"
"Yes, we thought they were coming to the mountain. Whoever it was whocamped here, we owe him a grudge. He burned our roof and stole our beds.Antoine and I made those beds last winter." One of the first things Louishad noticed on entering the house was that the stretched hides, which hadtaken the place of springs and mattress, were gone from the rustic cots.The hides had been cut off with a knife.
The bed frames being of no use, the boys lay down on the buffalo robebefore the fire. Louis and Neil slept soundly, but the pain in Walter'sfeet and legs and frosted cheek made him wakeful and restless.
His lameness and his sore face kept him at home the next day when theothers went out to seek for game and signs of fur animals. That was along day for Walter. Enough wood had been cut to last until evening, andhe kept the fire going. He cleaned out the remains of the burned roofwhich cluttered the floor, arranged the scanty supplies and equipmentmore neatly, drove some wooden pegs between the logs to hang clothes andsnowshoes on, mended a break in the dog harness, and did everything hecould find to do. The cabin had one window covered with oiled deerskinthat let in a little light, and the open fire helped to illuminate the
dim interior.
Dusk had come when the hunters returned, bringing two big white hares.Rabbit stew would be a welcome change from pemmican. They had set trapsand snares, had seen elk tracks, and had found, among rocks at the baseof a tree, a partly snow-blocked hole Louis thought might be a bear'swinter den.
South from Hudson Bay: An Adventure and Mystery Story for Boys Page 22
