Ungava | Page 6

man. He was of gigantic proportions,
straight and tall as a poplar, and endowed with the strength of a
Hercules. His glittering dark eyes and long black hair, together with the
hue of his skin, bespoke him of half-breed extraction. But his
countenance did not correspond to his fine physical proportions. True,
his features were good, but they wore habitually a scowling, sulky
expression, even when the man was pleased, and there was more of
sarcasm than joviality in the sound when Gaspard condescended to
laugh.

"I'll be shot if I go to such a hole for the best bourgeois in the country,"
said he in reply to Francois' question.
"You'll be dismissed the service if you don't," remarked Massan with a
smile.
To this Gaspard vouchsafed no reply save a growl that, to say the best
of it, did not sound amiable.
"Well, I think that we're all pretty much of one mind on the point,"
continued Francois; "and yet I feel half ashamed to refuse after all,
especially when I see the good will with which Messieurs Stanley and
Morton agree to go."
"I suppose you expect to be a bourgeois too some day," growled
Gaspard with a sneer.
"Eh, tu gros chien!" cried Francois, as with flashing eyes and clinched
fists he strode up to his ill-tempered comrade.
"Come, come, Francois; don't quarrel for nothing," said Massan,
interposing his broad shoulders and pushing him vigorously back.
At that moment an exclamation from one of the men diverted the
attention of the others.
"Voila! the canoe."
"Ay, it's Monsieur Stanley's canoe. I saw him and Monsieur Morton
start for the swamp this morning."
"I wonder what Dick Prince would have done in this business had he
been here," said Francois to Massan in a low tone, as they stood
watching the approach of their bourgeois' canoe.
"Can't say. I half think he would have gone."
"There's no chance of him coming back in time, I fear."

"None; unless he prevails on some goose to lend him a pair of wings
for a day or two. He won't be back from the hunt for three weeks
good."
In a few minutes more the canoe skimmed up to the wharf.
"Here, lads," cried Mr Stanley, as he leaped ashore and dragged the
canoe out of the water; "one of you come and lift this canoe up the
bank, and take these geese to the kitchen."
Two of the men instantly hastened to obey, and Stanley, with the gun
and paddles under his arm, proceeded towards the gateway of the fort.
As he passed the group assembled on the wharf, he turned and said--
"You'll come to the hall in an hour, lads; I shall expect you to be ready
with an answer by that time."
"Ay, ay, sir," replied several of the men.
"But we won't go for all your expectations," said one in an undertone to
a comrade.
"I should think not," whispered another.
"I'll be hanged, and burnt, and frozen if I do," said a third.
In the meantime Mr Stanley walked briskly towards his dwelling, and
left the men to grumble over their troubles and continue their debate as
to whether they should or should not agree to go on the pending
expedition to the distant regions of Ungava.
CHAPTER THREE.
SHOWS HOW STANLEY DEIGNED TO CONSULT WITH
WOMANKIND--THE OPINIONS OF A CHILD
DEVELOPED--PERSUASION FAILS--EXAMPLE
TRIUMPHS--THE FIRST VOLUNTEERS TO UNGAVA.

On reaching his apartment, which was in an angle of the principal
edifice in the fort, Mr Stanley flung down his gun and paddles, and
drawing a chair close to his wife, who was working with her needle
near a window, took her hand in his and heaved a deep sigh.
"Why, George, that's what you used to say to me when you were at a
loss for words in the days of our courtship."
"True, Jessie," he replied, patting her shoulder with a hand that rough
service had rendered hard and long exposure had burnt brown. "But the
producing cause then was different from what it is now. Then it was
love; now it is perplexity."
Stanley's wife was the daughter of English parents, who had settled
many years ago in the fur countries. Being quite beyond the reach of
any school, they had been obliged to undertake the instruction of their
only child, Jessie, as they best could. At first this was an easy matter,
but as years flew by, and little Jessie's mind expanded, it was found to
be a difficult matter to carry on her education in a country in most parts
of which books were not to be had and schoolmasters did not exist.
When the difficulty first presented itself, they talked of sending their
little one to England to finish her education; but being