Blazed Trail Stories, and Stories of the Wild Life
Page 5
V
THE FIFTH WAY
The prophet confessed four things as beyond his understanding--the wayof an eagle in the air, the way of a serpent upon the rock, the way of aship in the midst of the sea, and the way of a man with a maid--but weof modern times must add a fifth, and that is the way of justice. Foroften a blunderer caught red-handed escapes with slight punishment,while the clever man who transgresses, yet conceals his transgressioncraftily, pays at the end of a devious sequence with his life. Of thisfashion was the death of Regis Brugiere.
It happened that in the fall of the year two strangers came to Ste.Jeanne for the purpose of shooting grouse, and Regis Brugiere hiredhimself to them as guide. His duties were not many. He had simply todrive them from one hardwood belt to another. But in his leisure heoften followed them about, and so fell in love with Jim.
Jim was a black-and-white setter dog. Regis Brugiere watched him as hetrotted carefully through the woods, his four legs working like pistons,his head high, his soft, intelligent eyes spying for the likely cover.Then when he caught a faint whiff of the game, he would stop short, andlook around, and wag his tail. Not one step would he take towardassuring his point until the man had struggled through the thicket tohis side. Thus his master obtained many shots at birds flushing wildbefore the dog which otherwise he would not have had.
But when the bird lay well, then Jim would tread carefully forward asthough on eggs, until, his nostrils filled with the warm body-scent, hestood rigid, a living statue of beauty. A moment of breathlessexcitement ensued. With a burst of sound the bird roared away. Therefollowed the quick crack of the fowling-piece, a cloud of feathers inthe air, a long slanting fall. Jim looked up, eager but self-controlled.
"Fetch, Jim," said the man.
At once the dog bounded away, to return after a moment in the pride ofan army with banners, carrying the grouse daintily between his jaws.
Or the shot failed. Jim waited until he heard the click of the gun asits breech closed after reloading, then moved forward with well-bredrestraint to sniff long and inquiringly where the bird had been.
These things Regis Brugiere saw, following the hunt through thethickets, so that he broke the tenth commandment and coveted Jim with agreat love. He worshipped the dog's aloof dignity, his gentlemanlydemeanour of unhasting grace in the woods, his well-bred far-away gazeas he sat on his haunches staring into the distance.
So Regis Brugiere stole Jim, the black-and-white setter, and concealedhim well. To him it was a little thing to do. He did not know Jim'svalue, for in the north country a dog is a dog. After the strangers hadgone, bewailing their loss, Regis Brugiere loaded a toboggan withsupplies and traps and set out into the northwest on his annual trappingexcursion. He took with him Jim, by now entirely accustomed to his newmaster.
The two journeyed far through the forest, over many rivers and muskegs,through many swamps and ranges of hills. Regis Brugiere drew thetoboggan after him. The task should have been Jim's, but to the trapperthat would have seemed like harnessing Ignace St. Cloud, the seigneurof Ste. Jeanne, to an apple-cart. So Jim ranged at large in diagonalshaving a good time, while the man enjoyed himself by watching theanimal. In due course they came to a glade through which ran a soggy,choked, little spring-creek. Here Regis Brugiere kicked off hissnow-shoes with an air of finality. Here he erected a cabin, andestablished himself and Jim.
Over a circumference of forty miles then he set his traps, for thebeaver, the mink, the fox, the fisher, the muskrat, and the otherfur-bearing animals of the north. At regular intervals he visited thesetraps one after the other, crunching swiftly along on his snow-shoes.Jim always accompanied him. When the snow was deep, he wallowedpainfully after in the tracks made by Regis Brugiere. When it was not sodeep, he looked for grouse or ptarmigan, investigated many strangethings, or ran at large over the frozen surfaces of the little lakes.
At the trapping-places Jim had to stay behind. The man left with him hiscapote and snow-shoes, which Jim imagined himself to be guardingfaithfully. Thus he was satisfied.
Then on the return journey the two had fun. Regis Brugiere liked to pickJim up and throw him bodily into the deepest snow. Jim liked to havehim do so, and would disappear with an ecstatic yelp. In a moment hewould burst out of the drift and would dance about on the tips of histoes growling fiercely in mock deprecation of a repetition for which hehoped. These were the only occasions in which Jim relaxed his solemnity.At all other times his liquid brown eyes were mournful with thetempered, delicious sorrow of affection.
In the woods Jim acquired bad habits. He reverted to the original dog.Finding that Regis Brugiere paid little attention to the grouse socarefully pointed, Jim resolved to hunt on his own account. At first hisconscience hurt him so that the act amounted to sin. But afterward thedelighted applause of his new master reassured him. He crouched, hetrailed, he flushed, he chased, he broke all the commandments of asporting-dog's morality. In this was demoralisation, but also greatprofit. For Jim came to be an adept at surprising game in the snow. Hispoint now became exactly what it used to be in the primordial dog--apause of preparation before the spring. Jim was beautifully independent.Except in the matter of delicacies, he supported himself.
But one thing he knew not, and that was the deer. To him they were ashorses or sheep. He could not understand, nor did he care greatly, whythey should flee so suddenly when he appeared. So Regis Brugiere triedto teach him, but vainly. Thus it happened that often Jim had to be leftat home, for to a solitary trapper the deer is a necessity. There is inhim food and clothing.
At such times Regis Brugiere was accustomed to pile high the fireplacewith wood in order that his friend might be comfortable during hisabsence. Then he would leave the dog disconsolate. On the first of theseoccasions Jim effected an escape, and rejoined his master at a distancewith every symptom of delight. Regis Brugiere, returning disgusted,found the cabin-door sprawled wide: Jim had learned to pull it towardhim with his teeth. Shortly the trapper was forced to make a latch sothat the dog could not pull it ajar by the strength of his jaws andlegs. Perhaps it is well here to explain that ordinarily such acabin-door merely jams shut against the spring of a wand of hickory.
Now mark you this: If Regis Brugiere had not coveted and stolen the dogJim, he would not have been forced to construct the latch; without thelatch, he could easily have pushed open the door by leaning against it;if he could have pushed open the door, all would have been well withboth himself and Jim. And in this we admire the wonder of the fifthway--the way of justice by which a man's life is bartered for a fault.
One morning in the midwinter, when it was very cold with seventy degreesof frost, Regis Brugiere resolved to hunt the deer. As usual, he filledthe fireplace, spread a robe for Jim's accommodation, thrust thelatch-string through the small hole bored for that purpose, and set outin the forest. When he reached the swamp edge, he removed his snow-shoesand began carefully to pick his way along the fallen tops. Mounting on asnow-covered root, he thrust his right foot down into an unsuspectedcrevice, stumbled, and fell forward on his face.
When the blur of pain had cleared away, and he was able to take stock ofwhat had happened, Regis Brugiere found that he had snapped the bones ofhis leg short off below the knee.
The first part of his journey home to the cabin was one of profanity;the second of prayer; the third of grim silence. In the first he losthis rifle; in the second his courage; in the third his knowledge ofwhat was about him. Like a crippled rabbit he dragged himself over thesnow, a single black spot against the whiteness. The dark forest-treesgathered curiously about his wavering consciousness to look down on himin aloof compassion. And over him, invisible, palpable, hovered thedreadful north-country cold, waiting to stoop.
Regis Brugiere, by the grace of a woodsman's perseverance and theinstinct of a wild creature, gained at last the clearing in which hiscabin stood. Behind him wavered a long, deep-gouged furrow-trail,pitiful attest of suffering. His strength was water, but he was home.After a long time
he reached the door, and rested. The incident wascruel, but it was only one of many in a cruel way of life.
The twilight was coming down with thronging mysterious voices. Amongthem clamoured fiercely the voice of the cold. Regis Brugiere felt itsbreath on his heart, and, in alarm, broke through the apathy of hiscondition. It was time to recall his forces, to enter where could befound provisions and warmth. Painfully he turned on his right side andprepared to reach the latch-string. His first movement brought him anagony to be endured only with teeth and eyes closed, only by summoningto the minute task of thrusting his hand upward along the rough door allthe forces of his being down to the last shred of vitality. At once theindomitable spirit of the woods-runner answered the call. Regis Brugiereconcentrated his will on a pinpoint. Like a sprinter his volition wasfixed on a goal, beyond which lay collapse.
Inch by inch the hand kept on, blindly groping. It reached thelatch-string; passed it by.
Then, like a flame before it expires, the spirit of Regis Brugiereblazed out. With strange contortions of the body and writhings of theface his form came upright, the arm still reaching. So it swayed for amoment, then fell. The man's will-power ran from him in a last supremeeffort. Twice more he struggled blindly, but the efforts were feeble. Atlast with a sigh he gave himself to the cold, which had been waiting.And the cold was kind. Regis Brugiere fell asleep.
Five days later Jim, the black-and-white setter-dog, ceased his restlesswanderings to and fro, ceased trying to leap to the oiled window beyondwhich lay the forest and food in abundance, ceased vain clawings belowthe shelf-high supplies of flour and bacon, to curl himself by the dooras near as possible to the master who lay without. There he starved,dreaming in a merciful torpor of partridges in the snow. Thus was theway of justice fulfilled in the case of Regis Brugiere and thesetter-dog Jim.