Burned Bridges | Page 8

"He doesna know a moccasin from a snowshoe, scarce. I'd like tae
be aboot when 'tis forty below--an' gettin' colder. I'm thinkin' he'd relish
a taste o' hell-fire then, for a change--eh, Mike?"
The two of them went off into a fit of silent laughter, for the abysmal
ignorance of Wesley Thompson concerning practical things, his
awkward length of body, his student's pallor that the Athabasca sun had
played such havoc with, his blue eyes that looked so often with
trepidation or amazement on the commonplaces of their world, his
general incapacity and blind belief that an all-wise Providence would
personally intervene to make things go right when they went wrong,
had not struck these two hardy children of the solitudes as other than a
side-splitting joke.
"He rises i' the mornin'," MacDonald continued, "win' a word frae the
Book aboot the Lord providin', an' he'd starve if nabody was by t' cook
his meal. He canna build a fire wi'oot scorchin' his fingers. He lays hold
o' a paddle like a three months' babby. He bids ye pit yer trust i' the
Lord, an' himself rises up wi' a start every time a wolf raises the long
howl at nicht. I didna believe there was ever sae helpless a creature. An'
for a' that he's the laddie that's here tae show the heathen--thae puir,
sinfu' heathen, mind ye--how tae find grace. No that he's any doot aboot
bein' equal tae the job. For a' that he's nigh helpless i' the woods he was
forever ying-yangin' at me an' Mike for what he ca's sinfu' pride in oor
ain' persons. I've a notion that if yon had a bit o' that same sinfu' pride
he'd be the better able tae make his way."

Old MacPhee took the blackened clay pipe from his mouth and puffed
a blue spiral into the dead, sultry air. A sour expression gathered about
his withered lips.
"Dinna gibe at yon puir mortal," he rebuked. "Ye canna keep fools frae
wanderin'. I've seen manny's the man like him. It's likely that once he's
had a fair taste o' the North he'll be less a saint an' more a man."
The afternoon was far spent when they landed. Breyette and
MacDonald made themselves comfortable with their backs against the
wall. Supper came and was eaten. Evening closed in. The bold,
scorching stare of the sun faded. Little cooling breezes fluttered along
the lake shore, banishing the last trace of that brassy heat. Men who had
lounged indoors, or against shaded walls roamed about, and half-breed
women chattered in voluble gutturals back and forth between the
cabins.
CHAPTER III
THE DESERTED CABIN
In the factor's comfortable quarters Mr. Thompson sat down to the first
meal he had thoroughly relished in two weeks. A corner of the
verandah was screened off with wire netting. Outside that barrier
mosquitoes and sandflies buzzed and swarmed in futile activity. Within
stood an easy chair or two and a small table which was presently spread
with a linen cloth, set with porcelain dishes, and garnished with
silverware. All the way down the Athabasca Thompson had found
every meal beset with exasperating difficulties, fruitful of things that
offended both his stomach and his sense of fitness. He had not been
able to accommodate himself to the necessity of juggling a tin plate
beside a campfire, of eating with one hand and fending off flies with
the other. Also he objected to grains of sand and particles of ash and
charred wood being incorporated with bread and meat. Neither Breyette
nor MacDonald seemed to mind. But Thompson had never learned to
adapt himself to conditions that were unavoidable. Pitchforked into a
comparatively primitive mode of existence and transportation his first

reaction to it took the form of offended resentment. There were times
when he forgot why he was there, enduring these things. After such a
lapse he prayed for guidance and a patient heart.
These creature comforts now at hand were in a measure what he had
been accustomed to, what he had, with no thought on the matter, taken
as the accepted and usual order of things, save that his needs had been
administered by two prim and elderly spinster aunts instead of a
black-browed Scotchman and a half-breed servant girl.
Thompson sat back after his supper, fanning himself with an ancient
newspaper, for the day's heat still lingered. Across the table on which
he rested an elbow MacLeod, bearded, aggressive, capable, regarded
his guest with half-contemptuous pity under cover of the gathering
dusk. MacLeod smoked a pipe. Thompson chewed the cud of
reflection.
"And so," the factor began suddenly, "ye are a missionary to the Lone
Moose Crees. It will be a thankless task; a tougher one nor I'd care to
tackle. I ha' seen