White men, with their dull scent, might never have divined them; the

fragrance of the wood-fire would have concealed from them these almost

electrical hints of moss and bark and hardening swamp a hundred miles

away. Even Hank and Defago, subtly in league with the soul of the woods

as they were, would probably have spread their delicate nostrils in

vain … .

But an hour later, when all slept like the dead, old Punk crept

from his blankets and went down to the shore of the lake like a shadow

— silently, as only Indian blood can move. He raised his head and

looked about him. The thick darkness rendered sight of small avail,

but, like the animals, he possessed other senses that darkness could

not mute. He listened — then sniffed the air. Motionless as a

hemlock-stem he stood there. After five minutes again he lifted his

head and sniffed, and yet once again. A tingling of the wonderful

nerves that betrayed itself by no outer sign, ran through him as he

tasted the keen air. Then, merging his figure into the surrounding

blackness in a way that only wild men and animals understand, he

turned, still moving like a shadow, and went stealthily back to his

lean-to and his bed.

And soon after he slept, the change of wind he had divined stirred

gently the reflection of the stars within the lake. Rising among the

far ridges of the country beyond Fifty Island Water, it came from the

direction in which he had stared, and it passed over the sleeping camp

with a faint and sighing murmur through the tops of the big tree that

was almost too delicate to be audible. With it, down the desert paths

of night, though too faint, too high even for the Indian’s hair-like

nerves, there passed a curious, thin odour, strangely disquieting, an

odour of something that seemed unfamiliar — utterly unknown.

The French Canadian and the man of Indian blood each stirred

uneasily in his sleep just about the time, though neither of them woke.

Then the ghost of that unforgettably strange odour passed away and was

lost among the leagues of tenantless forest beyond.

II

In the morning the camp was astir before the sun. There had been a

light fall of snow during the night and the air was sharp. Punk had

done his duty betimes, for the odours of coffee and fried bacon reached

every tent. All were in good spirits.

“Wind’s shifted!” cried Hank vigorously, watching Simpson and his

guide already loading the small canoe. “It’s across the lake — dead

right for you fellers. And the snow’ll make bully trails! If there’s

any moose mussing around up thar, they’ll not get so much as a tail-end

scent of you with the wind as it is. Good luck, Monsieur Defago!” he

added, facetiously giving the name its French pronunciation for once,

“bonne chance!”

Defago returned the good wishes, apparently in the best of spirits,

the silent mood gone. Before eight o’clock old Punk had the camp to

himself, Cathcart and Hank were far along the trail that led westwards,

while the canoe that carried Defago and Simpson, with silk tent and

grub for two days, was already a dark speck bobbing on the bosom of the

lake, going due east.

The wintry sharpness of the air was tempered now by a sun that

topped the wooded ridges and blazed with a luxurious warmth upon the

world of lake and forest below; loons flew skimming through the

sparkling spray that the wind lifted; divers shook their dripping heads

to the sun and popped smartly out of sight again; and as far as eye

could reach rose the leagues of endless, crowding Bush, desolate in its

lonely sweep and grandeur, untrodden by foot of man, and stretching its

mighty and unbroken carpet right up to the frozen shores of Hudson Bay.

Simpson, who saw it all for the first time as he paddled hard in

the bows of the dancing canoe, was enchanted by its austere beauty. His

heart drank in the sense of freedom and great spaces just as his lungs

drank in the cool and perfumed wind. Behind him in the stern seat,

singing fragments of his native chanties, Defago steered the craft of

birchbark like a thing of life, answering cheerfully all his

companion’s questions. Both were gay and light-hearted. On such

occasions men lose the superficial, worldly distinctions; they become

human beings working together for a common end.