The Magnetic North | Page 7

pelts (you could get
things for your collection, Mac), and he's got two reindeer-skin shirts
with hoods--'parkis,' you know, like the others are wearing--"

They were quite near now.
"How do," said the foremost native affably.
"How do." The Boy came forward and shook hands as though he hadn't
seen him for a month. "This," says he, turning first to Mac and then to
the other white men, "this is Prince Nicholas of Pymeut. Walk right in,
all of you, and have something to eat."
The visitors sat on the ground round the stove, as close as they could
get without scorching, and the atmosphere was quickly heavy with their
presence. When they slipped back their hoods it was seen that two of
the men wore the "tartar tonsure," after the fashion of the coast.
"Where do you come from?" inquired the Colonel of the man nearest
him, who simply blinked and was dumb.
"This is the one that talks English," said the Boy, indicating Nicholas,
"and he lives at Pymeut, and he's been converted."
"How far is Pymeut?"
"We sleep Pymeut to-night," says Nicholas.
"Which way?"
The native jerked his head up the river.
"Many people there?"
He nodded.
"White men, too?"
He shook his head.
"How far to the nearest white men?"
Nicholas's mind wandered from the white man's catechism and fixed

itself on his race's immemorial problem: how far it was to the nearest
thing to eat.
"I thought you said he could speak English."
"So he can, first rate. He and I had a great pow-wow, didn't we,
Nicholas?"
Nicholas smiled absently, and fixed his one eye on the bacon that Mac
was cutting on the deal box into such delicate slices.
"He'll talk all right," said the Boy, "when he's had some breakfast."
Mac had finished the cutting, and now put the frying-pan on an open
hole in the little stove.
"Cook him?" inquired Nicholas.
"Yes. Don't you cook him?"
"Take heap time, cook him."
"You couldn't eat it raw!"
Nicholas nodded emphatically.
Mac said "No," but the Boy was curious to see if they would really eat
it uncooked.
"Let them have some of it raw while the rest is frying"; and he
beckoned the visitors to the deal box. They made a dart forward,
gathered up the fat bacon several slices at a time, and pushed it into
their mouths.
"Ugh!" said the Colonel under his breath.
Mac quickly swept what was left into the frying-pan, and began to cut a
fresh lot.

The Boy divided the cold beans, got out biscuits, and poured the tea,
while silence and a strong smell of ancient fish and rancid seal
pervaded the little tent.
O'Flynn put a question or two, but Nicholas had gone stone-deaf. There
was no doubt about it, they had been starving.
After a good feed they sat stolidly by the fire, with no sign of
consciousness, save the blinking of beady eyes, till the Colonel
suggested a smoke. Then they all grinned broadly, and nodded with
great vigour. Even those who had no other English understood
"tobacco."
When he had puffed awhile, Nicholas took his pipe out of his mouth,
and, looking at the Boy, said:
"You no savvy catch fish in winter?"
"Through the ice? No. How you do it?"
"Make hole--put down trap--heap fish all winter."
"You get enough to live on?" asked the Colonel.
"They must have dried fish, too, left over from the summer," said Mac.
Nicholas agreed. "And berries and flour. When snow begin get soft,
Pymeuts all go off--" He motioned with his big head towards the hills.
"What do you get there?" Mac was becoming interested.
"Caribou, moose--"
"Any furs?"
"Yes; trap ermun, marten--"
"Lynx, too, I suppose, and fox?"

Nicholas nodded. "All kinds. Wolf--muskrat, otter--wolverine--all
kinds."
"You got some skins now?" asked the Nova Scotian.
"Y--yes. More when snow get soft. You come Pymeut--me show."
"Where have ye been just now?" asked O'Flynn.
"St. Michael."
"How long since ye left there?"
"Twelve sleeps."
"He means thirteen days."
Nicholas nodded.
"They couldn't possibly walk that far in--"
"Oh yes," says the Boy; "they don't follow the windings of the river,
they cut across the portage, you know."
"Snow come--no trail--big mountains--all get lost."
"What did you go to St. Michael's for?"
"Oh, me pilot. Me go all over. Me leave N. A. T. and T. boat St.
Michael's last trip."
"Then you're in the employ of the great North American Trading and
Transportation Company?"
Nicholas gave that funny little duck of the head that meant yes.
"That's how you learnt English," says the Colonel.
"No; me learn English at Holy Cross. Me been baptize."

"At that Jesuit mission up yonder?"
"Forty mile."
"Well," says Potts, "I guess you've had enough walking for one winter."
Nicholas seemed not to follow