The Big Otter | Page 9

idea of what that means, but none save he or she who has had experience of it can fully understand it.
To us who dwelt at the little outpost in the Great Nor'-west, snow and ice had become so familiar--such matter-of-course conditions of existence--that green fields and flowers were a mere reminiscence of the remote past. The scent of a rose was a faded memory--indeed the scent of anything belonging to the vegetable kingdom had not once saluted our nostrils during those eight months. Pure white became one of the chief and most impressive facts of our existence in regard to colour, if we may so call it--white, varying in tone, of course, to pearly grey. Cold, of varied intensity, was the chief modifier of our sensations. Happily light was also a potent factor in our experiences--bright, glowing sunshine and blue skies contrasted well with the white and grey, and helped to counteract the cold; while pure air invigorated our frames and cheered our spirits.
"I tell you what, boys," said Lumley, one afternoon as he entered the hall with gun and snow-shoes on shoulder, and flung down a bag full of ptarmigan, "winter is drawing to a close at last. I felt my deerskin coat quite oppressive to-day; does any one know what the thermometer stood at this morning?"
"Yes, it was twenty-two above zero," answered Spooner, who was attempting to smoke a pipe beside the stove; "I went to register it just after breakfast."
"I thought so--only ten below freezing point; why, it feels quite summery, and the snow has a softness that I have not noticed since last autumn. I hope dinner will soon be ready, for I'm very sharp set. Why, Spooner, what are you making such faces for?"
"Am I making faces?" said Spooner, blushing and trying to look unconcerned.
"Of course you are, a marmozette monkey with the toothache could scarcely make worse."
Spooner attempted to laugh, and I felt it difficult to refrain from joining him, for I knew well the cause of his faces. He was the youngest of us three and exceedingly anxious to imitate Lumley, who was unfortunately a great smoker; but Spooner, like myself, had been born with a dislike to smoke--especially tobacco smoke--and a liability to become sick when he indulged in the pipe. Hence, whilst foolish ambition induced him to smoke, outraged nature protested; and between the two the poor fellow had a bad time of it. He had a good deal of determination about him, however, and persevered.
The dinner-bell rang at the moment, and put an end to further badinage.
Lumley was right. Spring was in truth at hand, and a host of new anticipations began from that day to crowd upon our minds.
About the same time there came another break in the monotony of outpost life which had, if possible, a more powerful and exciting influence on us than the arrival of the winter packet.
Now at this point I must beg the reader's pardon for asking him to go with me to a still more desolate and remote outpost than our own. Between one and two hundred miles nearer to the pole the little post of Muskrat House lay under a beetling cliff, near the banks of an affluent of the great Saskatchewan river. It was in charge of Peter Macnab, before mentioned, who, in command of his army of six men and two women, held the post against all comers--the chief comers there being the North Wind and Jack Frost.
Poor Macnab was a jovial and sociable Scottish Highlander, who had been condemned to worse than Siberian banishment because of being one of the most active, enterprising, and pushing fellows in the service of the Fur-Traders. His ability to manage men and Indians, and to establish new trading-posts, excelled that of his fellows. He regarded it as a complimentary though trying circumstance when Mr Strang sent him to establish the post which was named by him Muskrat House, but he faced the duty--as he faced everything--like a man; did his best for his employers, and made the most of the situation.
But it is not easy for even the strongest mind and lightest heart to be jovial when buried for eight months in snow more than twelve hundred miles beyond the influences of civilised life; and it is hard to be sociable with six uneducated men and two Indian women for one's companions. Macnab tried it, however, and was in a measure successful. He had his Bible with him--the one given him long ago by his mother--and a bound volume of Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, and three copies of the Times newspaper nearly two years old, and a few numbers of an American paper called the Picayune.
With these materials he set to work--after each day's labour of water-drawing, firewood-cutting, and trapping was done--to educate his