The Flaming Forest | Page 2

other men's wrists;
graying a little over the temples--and a lover of life. Above all else he
was that. A lover of life. A worshiper at the shrine of God's Country.
So he sat, that hour ago, deep in the wilderness eighty miles north of
Athabasca Landing, congratulating himself on the present conditions of
his existence. A hundred and eighty miles farther on was Fort
McMurray, and another two hundred beyond that was Chipewyan, and
still beyond that the Mackenzie and its fifteen- hundred-mile trail to the
northern sea. He was glad there was no end to this world of his. He was
glad there were few people in it. But these people he loved. That hour
ago he had looked out on the river as two York boats had forged up
against the stream, craft like the long, slim galleys of old, brought over
through the Churchill and Clearwater countries from Hudson's Bay.
There were eight rowers in each boat. They were singing. Their voices
rolled between the walls of the forests. Their naked arms and shoulders
glistened in the sun. They rowed like Vikings, and to him they were
symbols of the freedom of the world. He had watched them until they
were gone up-stream, but it was a long time before the chanting of their
voices had died away. And then he had risen from beside his tiny fire,
and had stretched himself until his muscles cracked. It was good to feel
the blood running red and strong in one's veins at the age of
thirty-seven. For Carrigan felt the thrill of these days when strong men
were coming out of the north --days when the glory of June hung over
the land, when out of the deep wilderness threaded by the Three Rivers
came romance and courage and red-blooded men and women of an
almost forgotten people to laugh and sing and barter for a time with the

outpost guardians of a younger and more progressive world. It was
north of Fifty-Four, and the waters of a continent flowed toward the
Arctic Sea. Yet soon would the strawberries be crushing red underfoot;
the forest road was in bloom, scarlet fire-flowers reddened the trail,
wild hyacinths and golden-freckled violets played hide- and-seek with
the forget-me-nots in the meadows, and the sky was a great splash of
velvety blue. It was the north triumphant--at the edge of civilization;
the north triumphant, and yet paying its tribute. For at the other end
were waiting the royal Upper Ten Thousand and the smart Four
Hundred with all the beau monde behind them, coveting and
demanding that tribute to their sex--the silken furs of a far country, the
life's blood and labor of a land infinitely beyond the pale of
drawing-rooms and the whims of fashion.
Carrigan had thought of these things that hour ago, as he sat at the edge
of the first of the Three Rivers, the great Athabasca. From down the
other two, the Slave and the Mackenzie, the fur fleets of the unmapped
country had been toiling since the first breakups of ice. Steadily, week
after week, the north had been emptying itself of its picturesque tide of
life and voice, of muscle and brawn, of laughter and song--and wealth.
Through, long months of deep winter, in ten thousand shacks and
tepees and cabins, the story of this June had been written as fate had
written it each winter for a hundred years or more. A story of the
triumph of the fittest. A story of tears, of happiness here and there, of
hunger and plenty, of new life and quick death; a story of strong men
and strong women, living in the faith of their forefathers, with the best
blood of old England and France still surviving in their veins.
Through those same months of winter, the great captains of trade in the
city of Edmonton had been preparing for the coming of the river
brigades. The hundred and fifty miles of trail between that last city
outpost of civilization and Athabasca Landing, the door that opened
into the North, were packed hard by team and dog- sledge and packer
bringing up the freight that for another year was to last the forest people
of the Three River country--a domain reaching from the Landing to the
Arctic Ocean. In competition fought the drivers of Revillon Brothers
and Hudson's Bay, of free trader and independent adventurer. Freight

that grew more precious with each mile it advanced must reach the
beginning of the waterway. It started with the early snows. The tide
was at full by midwinter. In temperature that nipped men's lungs it did
not cease. There was no let-up in the whip-hands of the masters of trade
at Edmonton, Winnipeg, Montreal, and London across the sea. It was