The Ely miner. [volume] (Ely, Minn.) 1895-1986, 1927-07-22
CHAPTER III-Continued

"And that is what keeps you here
this winter" she hazarded, when it
might be Montreal; your love of hunt
ing-the wilderness?'
She is thinking of the pictures Of
Ethel, Guthrie surmised, and wonders
why l stay. As the York boat traS
eled, pushed by the following breeze
his gaze swept the shimmering waters
of the gray strait to the sunlit barrens
of the island Then he faced her
frankly.
I'm not sure what keeps me here.
II pulls me-the country, this life.
After the war, everything was changed.
Montreal had grown callous. No one
cared for anything but pleasure-and
money. 1t seemed as if the whole
world had forgotten then-the ones
who went west and what they died
for. l grew to hate 1.-THE office. My
nerves were bit jumpy from the gas,
] suppose. l was off color, of course,
but everybody who had been in 1t had
hard pull to readjuSt-to settle into
the grind again. 1t was all new to
me-business, the works, and wished
j was back with the battalion-with
the mud, and the rest of it."
She nodded. 81 know just how you
felt. There were times after l re-
turned when 1 was simply homesick
for my wounded and the hospital life.
I've really dreamed of it."
ut gets you, doesn't it? although you
Il NlybiIn in IF -, Jic
eyes lit with memory.
She smiled in understanding at
was hard, and awful-yet it does get
one, as you say. 1t was life in the
raw, stripped of the veneer-the
shams. That is the reason, 1 sup
pose"
Yes, stripped of the shams-that's
it" BE frowned, then went on. "Shot,
here, misses it terribly-the noise, and
excitement, and the men. He fights it
all over again in his dreams. l know
when he hears the guns or sees a
Fritz. He looks like mad porcupine
all quilts, as he thrashes in his sleep.
Eth, Shot? . . Stand to-"
With a low rumble in the hairy
throat, the war dog leaped back, stiff
fleming from nose to cooked tail, ears
pricked, quivering nostrils testing the
air, as the hair lifted on name and
back.
Bravo, Shotl' she cried, reaching
TO pat the tense head of the dog. But
the airedale ignored her, his small
terrier eyes questioning Guthries face
for the reason for the familiar
"Alerte," which stirred wild memories
of black nights shot with flashes of
light; of noises great and small; of
men rawling-running of men lying
still.
Guthrie Gained the excited dog.
''You see, like the rest of US, he hasn't
forgotten"
Good old Shotp' And Joan Quar-
rier stroked the head of the dog who
had returned to them. But her
thoughts were of the girl in Montreal,
and the riddle of Guthrie's exile.
Through the September day the
York boat followed the coast south.
In mid-afteruoon Guthrie anchored
off the Big Willow river and going
ashore in the canoe, made Camp that
Joan Quarter might have hot tea and
food, and sleep, while he and Etienne.
with the Sailors stayed with the boat.
The following afternoon, on the high
south shore of Albany island, they saw
the quaint, square roofs of the Oblate
mission, and that night three men
sat in the traderoom at historic Fort
Albany. where each autumn, for two
centuries, men had watched the last
wedges of the gray geese fade into the
south; seen the coming of the long
SHOWS and the ice bridge the river
channels; starved or Toasted through
the slow beat of the desolate days.
Here, In the red years Of the Seven
teenth century, the old log fort, built
by the English, was stormed, retaken
and stormed again, in the bitter war
with the French for the fur trade
Here, generations of men had lived
and loved and died, marooned in the
James bay silences.
The talk of the three men in the
traderoom conferred on the meeting
of the free-trader with Quarter and
the news that Mcdonald was to winter
on the west coast.
Major" said Hugh Cameron, the
factor, obviously shaking a grizzled
head, this fellows wintering at Aki-
miski will ruin our fox trade. He'll
be so handy to their traplines that
they'll dribble in their pelts as fast as
they get 'em, for his trade goods and
groceries"
''Etenne counts on the loyalty of
the older hunters We intend to keep
In touch with them"
Keep in touch2 How're you going
to cross that strait before January?
It'll be full of drifting ice."
THE ice won't be set hard, but we
intend to make it with a canoe on our
sled. Well carry the sled in the canoe
or the canoe on the sled, as the con-
ditions change"
''Risky-that's bad piece of water
I've seen the Ice set and break up
again three times before January.
And when you get there, how're you
going to keep them away from his
schooner?