I could not know
how far the Indian mind had been influenced in gauging the distance
by a desire to reduce to the smallest possible limit the amount of
tobacco the men would need to retain for their own use. It was not
far from the last week in August. Now I felt that not simply a day
but even an hour might cost me a winter in Labrador.
When the word went forth that we were about to leave, all gathered
for the parting. Looking about for something which I might carry
away with me as a souvenir of the visit, my eyes caught the beaded
band, which the chief's daughter wore on her hair, and stepping
towards her I touched it to indicate my wish. She drew sharply
away and said something in tones that had a plainly resentful ring.
It was, "That is mine." I determined not to be discouraged and
made another try. Stretched on a frame to dry was a very pretty
deer-skin and I had George ask if I might have that. That seemed
to appeal to them as a not unreasonable request, and they suggested
that I should take one already dressed. The woman who had wanted
my sweater went into the wigwam and brought out one. It was very
pretty and beautifully soft and white on the inside. She again
pleaded for the sweater, and as I could not grant her request I
handed her back the skin; but she bade me keep it. They gave
George a piece of deer-skin dressed without the hair, "to line a
pair of mits," they said.
As they stood about during the last few minutes of our stay, the
chief's arm was thrown across his little daughter's shoulders as
she leaned confidingly against him. While the parting words were
being exchanged he was engaged in a somewhat absent-minded but none
the less successful, examination of her head. Many of the others
were similarly occupied. There was no evidence of their being
conscious that there was anything extraordinary in what they were
doing, nor any attempt at concealing it. Apparently it was as much
a matter of course as eating.
When I said, "Good-bye," they made no move to accompany me to the
canoe.
"Good-bye," said George. "Send us a fair wind."
Smilingly they assured him that they would. In a minute we were in
the canoe and pushing off from shore. As we turned down the lake,
all eager to be shortening the distance between us and the post, I
looked back. They were still standing just as we had left them
watching us. Taking out my handkerchief I waved it over my head.
Instantly the shawls and kerchiefs flew out as they waved a
response, and with this parting look backward to our wilderness
friends we turned our faces to Ungava.
CHAPTER XVII
THE RACE FOR UNGAVA
Five days to Ungava!
Seated in' the canoe with time to think I could not seem
to realise the situation. Indian House Lake! Five days to Ungava!
Oh! how I wanted it to be true. Ungava, in spite of hopes and
resolves, had seemed always far away, mysterious, and unattainable,
but now it had been suddenly thrust forward almost within my reach.
If true, this would mean the well-nigh certain achievement of my
heart's desire - the completion of my husband's work. Yet there
were the rapids, where the skill and judgment of the men were our
safeguards. One little miscalculation and it would take but an
instant to whelm us in disaster. Still we had come so far on the
way with success, surely it would be given to us to reach the goal
in safety. But here inevitably thought flew to one who had been
infinitely worthy but who had been denied.
Five days to Ungava! and because I so much wished it to be true I
was afraid, for the hard things of life will sometimes make cowards
of its pilgrims.
The Barren Grounds Water was very fair in the morning sunshine. It
was as if, while exploring some great ruin, we had chanced into a
secret, hidden chamber, the most splendid of them all, and when
after lunch the promised fair wind sprang up, and the canoes with
well-filled sails were speeding northward, the lake and its
guardian hills became bluer and more beautiful than ever.
Nowhere did we find the lake more than two miles wide. Long points
reaching out from either shore cut off the view and seemed to
change the course; but in reality they did not, for it was always
northward. To right and left there were the hills, now barren
altogether, or again with a narrow belt of "greenwoods" - spruce,
balsam, tamarack - along the shore. In many places skeleton
wigwams marked the site of old Nascaupee camps. The hills on the
east in places rose abruptly from the water, but on the west they
stood a little back with sand-hills on terraces between and an
occasional high, wedge-shaped point of sand and loose rock reached
almost halfway across the lake. Often as I looked ahead, the lake
seemed to end; but, the distant point passed, it stretched on again
into the north till with repetition of this experience, it began to
seem as if the end would never come. Streams entered through
narrow openings between the hills, or roared down their steep
sides. At one point the lake narrowed to about a quarter of a mile
in width where the current was very swift. Beyond this point we
saw the last caribou of the trip.
It was a three-year-old doe. She stood at the shore watching us
curiously as we came towards her.
